Neal and Rachel's Wisconsin Adventures!

Good Job, Headline Writers

2012-01-16T11:09:00.004-06:00

#1:
Very poetic, ABC News. Maybe invest in a thesaurus, though?

#2:This has been on the Daily Beast for days. I guess Tebow's been busy! I assume he wasn't rescued, but was the one doing the rescuing.

The Shingles

2012-01-01T20:32:00.003-06:00

One of my personal notable events of 2011 was getting ye olde shingles. By request, here's an account:

Day 1: "Ew, what is this rash? It must be from the heat." [Ignores the fact that she never got a rash from heat while living in Texas, carefully cleans and airs out rash with blithe confidence that will do it.]

Day 2: "Wait, why is it WORSE?!? I was being so nice to it!!"[Resolves to go to doctor once the weekend is over, mostly enjoys Packers Family Night in spite of being itchy and stingy in the heat and, later, pouring rain]

The face of a person who is stoked to be at Lambeau Field, but is also secretly pretty uncomfortable. (Me, not Neal.)

Day 3: "Less worse than yesterday! Hooray?"

Day 4: Doctor: "That's shingles." Me: "SHINGLES?!? No, yeah, actually that makes a lot of sense." Doctor: "Take these horse pills."

Days 5-8: [Has exact right amount of sick time to sit on the couch, feeling sorry for self and watching Project Runway (season 8)]

And then the horse pills worked! The end.

Review: Crossed

2011-11-30T21:13:00.001-06:00

Crossed by Ally Condie

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well. That wasn't good.

The biggest problem with Crossed is that it's extremely dull. The greatest strength of the first book, Matched, was the Society the characters lived in. This book takes the characters out of Society and puts them in a canyon, where they wander back and forth to no clear purpose.

If the characters were particularly vibrant or intriguing, this might still work. But as it turns out, when separated from the interesting concepts of their world, the characters are dull and generic. Also, half of the chapters are from the perspective of the female lead, and half from that of the male lead, but the voice they're written in is identical. I could only tell who was narrating from the headers and context clues. Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer (and heaven knows I have), but the chapters written from Jacob's perspective sound like a different person. (Oh, and either I had stopped paying attention, or the little interpersonal dramas made no sense. "You know that story you told about your mother and also it happened in a book or something? Well, I have deduced it was really about YOU!" Seriously, does anybody know what that was about?)

I liked the first one, and I still intend to read the third one when it comes out. The optimistic interpretation of how bad this one was is that Condie only had enough material for two books, but decided she needed to stretch the gap between points A and B because her publisher wanted a trilogy. The pessimistic interpretation is that once she ran out of plot to crib from The Giver, she was out of ideas. I'm hoping it's the first option, but we'll find out.

View all my reviews

Another Webcomic Recommendation

2011-07-29T22:16:00.004-05:00

I know I read more webcomics than many people, but seriously, this one's very good: Basic Instructions. It's monochromatically hilarious!

I'll only put one sample here, since it turned out small (click on it to embiggen, or see the original page here):

And here are some links to my favorites:

How to Tell Someone that They are Wrong

How to Play Video Games "Together"

How to Get Amazing Kicks from Something "Normal" People Will Never Understand (it's about the show The Prisoner)

How to Calm a Frightened Child

How to Create a Weapon that is Devastating and Unstoppable

and, from just a few days ago, How to Live Your Dreams.

My Favorite Lines from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

2011-07-17T00:09:00.006-05:00

Voldemort: "How do you live with yourself?"
Lucious Malfoy: "FAAAABulously!"

Neville: "I have snake murder in my heart!"

Snape: "Take [my tears]! Take them!"
Harry: "PENSIEVES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
Ron: "The Room of Requirement doesn't show up on the map. That's what you said last year, remember?"
Hermione: "That's right, I forgot! Thanks for finally putting right our gender roles, so now we can make out!"

McGonagall: "Longbottom, you and Mr. Finnigan go blow it up!"
Neville: "Blow what up, Professor?"
McGonagall: "The Alfonso Cuaron Memorial Bridge, of course!"

Every character, ever: "You have your mother's eyes!"Little girl who played young Lily: [has brown eyes]

David Yates, to the special effects guys: "I like this scene, but can something be floating in it? Always more floating!"

Little Albus: "But Dad, what if the Sorting Hat puts me in Slytherin?"
Harry: "Son, with that haircut, I'd be worrying about Hufflepuff."

Little Albus: "Why are they all staring?"
Ron: "Don't let it worry you. It's me. I'm extremely famous."
OH NO WAIT they didn't include the best line from the epilogue

and of course,
Voldemort: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling kids!" [dissolves into confetti]

Today in Vanity License Plates

2011-07-13T12:24:00.002-05:00

HEY IM JT

I think we all know exactly how this went down.

JT: Hey, yeah, so, can I get a vanity license plate that says "JT"? Because I'm JT.

Low-level bureaucrat: JT is taken.

JT: Um, ok, how about "IM JT"?

LLB: Taken.

JT, deep in thought: How can I let people know, with my car, that I'm JT? Hmmm . . . . Hey, I've got it!

58 MPG

The car with this one parks at the bank near my library. I don't know what kind it is, but I guess I'm supposed to be consumed with jealousy every time I see it.

May Classics: Task Completed

2011-06-01T18:55:00.006-05:00

I did it! I went the whole month of May only reading classic works of literature! Except for when I brought the Axe Cop book home from the library, but comics don't count, right?

As Craig pointed out, my initial list of classics was waaaay too ambitious for one month of reading, so I'm planning to hold more Classics Months in the future. Not this month, though. For one thing, I already told all my cheesy YA lit holds to come back to the library for me. For another thing, one of my co-workers pointed out that it's better to read classics in the wintertime. That's clearly just true.

Here's what I accomplished:

1. Ivanhoe

Here's my Goodreads review. In a nutshell, Ivanhoe is not really good, but I can see how it set up a lot of the knights/chivalry/Richard the Lionhearted/Robin Hood cliches we all love so much. So it has that going for it.

After I read Ivanhoe, I checked out the 1952 movie version and boy howdy! If I thought the book had some dumb parts, it has nothing on the film. Neal and I had a grand old MST3K time with that one. Short version: plastic swords and helmets, everyone except Elizabeth Taylor is ugly and can't act (and Elizabeth Taylor's acting was no great shakes either), and the comic relief characters dies a painful death that no one ever remarks upon. Oh, and it got nominated for Best Picture that year, so I hope you're ashamed of yourself, cinema industry of 1952.

2. Slaughterhouse-Five

I would link you to my Goodreads review for this one, but I was only in the mood to write "It would have been better without the aliens." Which is true.

It's an odd little book; one that's better before the story gets started. It starts with what I assume is an only barely fictionalized account of Vonnegut trying to, but having a hard time getting around to, writing a book about his experience in Dresden during WWII. Once it gets to its protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, it's not nearly as interesting. Here's my problem with the book: Billy Pilgrim is a worthless, pathetic nothing even before he goes to war. His experience in Dresden doesn't break him. He's pretty much exactly the same until he goes crazy, long after the war, because he's in a plane crash and sustains a serious head injury. I don't care about Billy Pilgrim when he's being useless in Germany; I don't care about Billy Pilgrim when he's experiencing middle-aged ennui; I don't care about Billy Pilgrim when he thinks he's been abducted by aliens and living in their zoo. I would care about what happened in Dresden, but that only gets a cameo.

3. Great Expectations

My Goodreads review for this one is pretty long. This was the biggest surprise of Classics Month: I liked Great Expectations! It was sort of difficult going for the first two-thirds (although it was much funnier than I expected), but then the last third was really great and made the first parts worth it. I really enjoyed it.

4. The Catcher in the Rye

Like I mention in the Goodreads review, this is the only one of the books I read in May that I don't understand why it's a classic. Holden Caulfield is much, much more worthless than Billy Pilgrim. A co-worker/Goodreads friend told me she was sad to see I hated the book. I asked her if the point was to hate Holden, and she said it was, so I will admit that at least it's successful. I will give it this, too: it's a very believable internal portrait of an anti-social, spoiled, stuck-up teenage boy. But that doesn't make it any less irritating to have to spend so much time in his head. Especially when there's no plot to move things along.

This is a serious question for you: why do we, as a society, care about this book?

5. Heart of Darkness

I'm not going to lie to you:

I picked Heart of Darkness because I didn't finish Catcher in the Rye until the 29th. No regrets!

Again: Goodreads review link. Basically, I can tell this is good (unlike with some extremely popular J. D. Salinger books I could name), but I don't think I could fully get it without more outside study. It hints instead of explaining. I wish I had read it in some level of school so I could have wrung more of the meaning out of it.

That was the great thing about the Axe Cop book. All the commentary!

Et tu, Turge?

2011-05-09T20:28:00.002-05:00

Welp, looks like Maryland has hired away Mark Turgeon from Texas A&M. My reaction? I, um . . . I don't care.

I should care, and in some ways I do. It's problematic, but unsurprising, that A&M is a stepping-stone job. And I don't like that part of the reason Turgeon is leaving, probably, is that Aggie fans do not fill Reed on a regular basis. That's stupid. There's no excuse for poor attendance when the team has been consistently good. And, of course, I worry about who Bill Byrne will get as a replacement, especially since it's a little late in the off-season to be finding somebody.

However.

Mark Turgeon seems like a real nice guy, and he's a good coach, but he's not a great coach. This year's Aggie team, in particular, was just awful to watch. I'm glad they made the tournament, but watching them play was like getting teeth pulled.

Now, this is partly coming from me just not following Aggie basketball as closely as I used to. I'm sure I would have liked Turgeon's teams better if I'd known them better. Certainly, A&M could do worse than Turgeon. Certainly. But I feel that he continued Billy Gillispie's success instead of truly building on it. So I think, and I very much hope, that A&M can find somebody who can do at least a little more than that. We'll just have to see.

May Classics

2011-05-01T09:40:00.002-05:00

OK, new project!

Last night, it occurred to me: some month, I should only read classic works of literature. (I feel like I have a lot of those to catch up on; due to my lackluster high school English classes [I'm sorry, Mrs. Seuser, it was the textbooks, not you] I've missed out on reading many of the books "everybody" "should" read. I mean, I usually know enough about them to answer a related Trivial Pursuit question, but that's not the same.) And I realized, hey! Tomorrow is the start of a new month! Let's do this thing.

This decision has required commitment on my part, I just want you to know. I'm taking back to the library not one, not two, but three fairly awesome-sounding YA lit books, unread. (I've got to write a post about my newfound fascination with YA lit sometime. There's some good stuff for teens out there!) I'm also returning a couple edifying nonfiction works which, um, I'm sure would have been just as good. But now I've got those back on hold (but suspended, so they won't come back to me until June) so I can clear out my book space and head space for Classics of Literature.

The first (and, give that it is only one month and all, perhaps only) order of business is to read classics Neal and I have on our own shelves, but that I have never read. I'm most determined to read Great Expectations. I bought myself a copy of Great Expectations in maybe middle school, intending to Dickens it up, but I was never able to get through it, no matter how many times I tried. Here's the kicker: I found out, as I was writing this post right here, that I own an abridged version of Great Expectations. I didn't even make it through something two steps up from a Cliff's Notes! So in this case, I won't be reading what we have on our shelf, but rather a different copy of something we have on our shelf.

I think I'll start with Ivanhoe, another book I've tried and failed at in the past. At least my copy of that is unabridged. Other project books include:

Machiavelli's The Prince (which I should have read before I wrote my masters thesis, since it came up)

Gulliver's Travels

The Catcher in the Rye (although I'm not expecting it to be good, considering all the parodies of Salinger's writing style I've seen)

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Fahrenheit 451

The Inferno

Heart of Darkness

Slaughterhouse-Five

If I get through those, is there anything else I should target? Any "classics" that I really do need to read? (I also already had Dracula and The Jungle on my Goodreads to-read shelf, so I threw them on my classics-project shelf as well.) I want to do this thing up right!

Friends: Season Ten

2011-04-26T16:40:00.002-05:00

In general:
Sigh.

So here's what happened: I put off and put off watching this season. Then, when I finally got around to the first disc, I discovered that there was a lot in the episodes that made me laugh--it was much better than I remembered. Then, for no good reason, I didn't get around to watching the second disc.

I waited so long that once I finally decided to do the dang thing already, I reviewed my notes and discovered I no longer remembered what they meant. So I started from the beginning of the season again. I laughed much less.

I tell you this seemingly pointless story because I realized: my viewing experience mirrored the original experience of watching Season Ten back when it first aired. We were so happy to still be getting new episodes of Friends that, if for novelty reasons alone, we enjoyed them pretty well. But we enjoyed them less the more we saw them. (No doubt because of how much the cast was getting paid, this season is only 75% as long as all the others. That made for a lot--a lot--of reruns.) And as the season wore on, even the new episodes seemed less and less good. Because they were indeed less and less good.

It cannot be denied, there are funny lines and funny ideas in Season Ten--but not enough of them to fill up even seventeen episodes there are. So the rest of the time is taken up by:

-Stretching the good ideas as far as they will go (example: the "floating heads" gag when Monica and Chandler lock everybody out in "The One with the Late Thanksgiving" is funny, until it drags on and on and on)

-Having the characters be horrible, horrible human beings (one example from among so many: pretty much everyone in "The One with Phoebe's Wedding." Chandler and Ross both throw fits about not being in the wedding, while Monica runs the wedding by being a cruel as possible. The worst thing about this is that after firing Monica, Phoebe gets overwhelmed by the logistics and re-hires her, making the lesson that Monica was right to be horrible all along. Yay?)

-Making Joey ridiculously, cartoonishly, painfully stupid (example: in "The One Where Joey Speaks French," where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French for a role, and the culmination of the plot is that Phoebe tells the casting director that Joey is retarded. It's in French, but the word "retarded" is actually used in the subtitles. Why does calling Joey retarded make Phoebe a good friend?!?)

And I have to tell you, I couldn't even watch the Danny DeVito scenes in "The One Where the Stripper Cries." I had to fast-forward. My heart couldn't take it.

But then the series ends as it must: Monica and Chandler move out of The Apartment, having achieved babies; Phoebe has been married off; and of course Ross and Rachel end up together. (Which is why the Joey-Rachel romance had to be quickly and illogically killed off at the beginning of the season.) It wasn't creative, but it was compulsory. The loose ends had to be wrapped up, except in the event of spin-off potential.

Little things that drive me crazy:
Rachel's bangs in the second half of the season. They're always in her face. Get a barrette, girl, dang!

When Monica gets shell-ended dreadlocks in her hair and then rubs them "sexily" on Chandler. It bums me out.

Pretty much every element of "The One Where Estelle Dies." Phoebe (and everyone who doesn't stop her) thinks it's appropriate to hide Joey's agent's death from him because . . . ? Chandler keeps Janice from buying the house next door to theirs by pretending he still wants her, in (as I have complained before) a blatant re-hash of the Janice episode in Season Seven. Jane Lynch guest stars and is utterly wasted in a nothing role. Rachel decides to move to Paris even though her baby lives in New York (the plan seems to be that the baby will take a bunch of transatlantic flights). Rachel's old boss from Ralph Lauren agrees to re-hire her in response to Ross's bribes, so . . . that guy's pretty corrupt. In a classic Ross Misunderstanding, Ross offers to do a favor for Rachel's boss's son . . . but makes it sound like he's going to molest Rachel's boss's son! Ha ha! Pedophile jokes are awesome. And finally,

what is Rachel wearing here? Grandma's S&M sweater?

I'll stop with this section now, because there several more episodes I could do a similar list with. ("The One with Ross's Grant," "The One with the Home Study," "The One with the Late Thanksgiving," "The One with the Birth Mother," and "The One Where Joey Speaks French" spring to mind.) But that wouldn't be good for the mental health of any of us, I'm sure.

No, one last thing: in the very last scene, everyone is together and gives up their keys to the apartment and so forth. Monica and Chandler are happy, because now they have their babies. Ross and Rachel are happy, because they're together and . . . wait, where's Emma? To be fair, you could ask this question a couple times in pretty much every episode, but seriously, why isn't Emma there? The other babies are there! Why not Emma?! (I also think Mike should have been there, since he represents Phoebe's happy ending, but I can understand why his presence--unlike Emma's!--would have been intrusive.)

Plain old little things:
Anne Dudek plays Precious, the girlfriend Mike decides to break up with on her birthday. Years later, Anne Dudek appeared on How I Met Your Mother as Natalie, a girl Ted breaks up with on her birthday (twice). What are the odds?

Joey sold his boat (The Mr. Bowmont, as I hope he still called it) two years ago. But when exactly did the chick and the duck die?

Little things I love:
Chandler's certainty that their baby's biological father is not the one that was captain of the football team, but the one that murdered his father with a shovel. (Of course Monica's not as worried, "He's probably got a tattoo that says 'Mom' on his shovel-wielding arm!")

Crap Bag

Rachel doesn't mind when drunk Ross spills the beans that Charlie has never liked Rachel: "It's OK, girls tend not to like me." At least she's at peace with it.

Phoebe's right: Jack Bing is a great name, very worthy of a 1940s newspaperman.

At the beginning of "The One Where Chandler Gets Caught," everybody is sitting around the coffee house, talking about which they'd rather give up for life, sex or food. It's very first season, and it's cute they included a scene like that in the last season.

Lines:

Monica, with crazy hair: "Wait a minute--Ross and Charlie, Joey and Rachel, Phoebe and Mike--we're the only people leaving with the same person we came with!" Chandler: "That's not true, I came with Monica, and I'm leaving with Weird Al!"
Chandler, after Joey discovers the thesaurus: "You signed it Baby Kangaroo Tribbiani."
Rachel: "He's cute! Thank you, JewHunks.com!"
Phoebe, when Knicks fans heckle her and Mike: "ODIN WILL SMITE YOU!"
Monica: "Chandler, you're panicking!" Chandler: "Uh-huh! Join me, won't you?!?"

Let's talk about Gunther:
Gunther is pathetic. Gunther is passive and passive-aggressive. Gunther is awkward and a little creepy and off-putting to the people around him. Gunther is complicit in his own misery.

But how can you not love Gunther?

Gunther speaks Dutch! Gunther is steadfast! When Gunther gets invited to a party, he helps do the dishes.

Considering that James Michael Tyler appeared in more episodes by far than anyone outside the six core actors (he's got 141 to runner-up Elliot Gould's 20), it's surprising that there are no Gunther-centric episodes. The closest thing to it is "The One with the Joke" from Season 6, in which Joey starts working at Central Perk, resulting in upwards of three Gunther scenes. Even there, he's still a supporting player in the C plot.

But let it not be said that Gunther is unimportant! His effect on events may be subtle, as in "The One with a Chick and a Duck" (Season 3). The episode begins with Gunther coming outside to bring Rachel a cocoa which--because it distracts her from Monica roller-skating towards her--results in Rachel breaking a rib. Gunther can also be direct. One of my favorite Gunther moments is in "The One Where Monica and Richards are Friends" (Season 3), where Gunther is the only person willing to tell Phoebe's boyfriend that his junk is hanging out ("Hey buddy, this is a family place. Put the mouse back in the house"). And occasionally, Gunther really shakes things up. These are the the top three most pivotal Gunther moments:

#3: Gunther helps convince Joey to move back in with Chandler, "The One Where Eddie Won't Go"
After getting killed off on Days of Our Lives, Joey blithely assumes his next big success is right around the corner. He wants to keep not just his fancy apartment, but all the fancy junk he bought to decorate the apartment. Ross tries to convince him to cut back on his expenses, but he resists. Then he goes to Central Perk and shares his woes with Gunther, who asks how they killed his character. "I was buried in an avalanche," Gunther then volunteers. "I was Bryce on All My Children." This more than anything else gets the point across to Joey that the next big paycheck might be a long way off. For that reason (and to help Chandler with his insane-replacement-roommate problem), Joey ends up back where he belongs.

#2: Gunther unwittingly gets Rachel to quit her job at Central Perk, "The One Where Rachel Quits"
Gunther tells Rachel that their boss, Terry, wants Rachel to go through new waitress training again (because she's a terrible, terrible waitress). Gunther's patient but condescending explanations of where the trays go and how to tell decaf from regular coffee drive Rachel over the edge. She quits the coffee shop to take a gamble on a career in fashion, changing the entire trajectory of her character.

#1: Gunther breaks up Ross and Rachel, "The One the Morning After"
Yes, that's right! It was Gunther! Recall: after getting back together with Rachel, Ross scrambles frantically to keep her from finding out that he slept with the girl from the copy place. Chloe the copy girl has already told her co-worker, who has told his sister Jasmine, who works at the massage parlor with Phoebe. Jasmine promises not to tell Phoebe, but has already told her roommate--cut to Gunther. Ross pleads, "Please tell me you didn't say anything to Rachel about me and the girl from the copy place." Gunther, with faux concern: "Oh, I'm sorry. Was I not supposed to?" If Rachel hadn't found out, or if Ross had had enough time to tell her himself, their relationship may have been salvageable. Gunther: evil genius?

Well, no. The best summary of Gunther, when you get right down to it, is his costume in "The One with the Halloween Party": Charlie Brown.

Top two episodes:
"The One with the Cake"
or: "The One with Joey's Dramatic Reading"

"The Last One"

. . . I mean, neither of those are really that good, but they're the best of the 17.

But fear not!
This is not the note on which we are ending the series of Friends posts. There is still a wrap-up post to go, featuring (among other things; let me know if you have suggestions) all-time best and worst episodes, all-time best and worst guest stars, the seasons ranked in order, and some stuff about kissing! It's gonna be good times.

Twilight: A Primer

2011-01-06T15:22:00.008-06:00

Twilight is the first book in a series about teenagers, vampires, and teenage vampires. It is one of the most popular books of the current millennium and is written at roughly the level of a poorly-edited Sweet Valley High volume. Its author, Stephenie Meyer, seems likely to have produced it in one draft.

The book's protagonist and narrator, Bella, is a perpetually whiny teenage girl who hates herself, her parents, and her friends. Readers are expected to identify with her on every level.

Bella's love interest is the vampire Edward; he is humorless, controlling, manipulative, condescending, over-protective, materialistic, pessimistic, and snide. Readers are expected to realize that he is The Perfect Man.

Edward belongs to a "family" of vampires, two of whom pose as adults and four others that, like Edward, pretend to be teenagers. (Apparently, vampires in Twilight think it is a good use of their immortality to attend high school over and over.) Edward's father, Carlisle, is a doctor; his wife is Esme. Edward's sister Rosalie is remarkable for being very attractive even though all vampires are very attractive, while her husband-brother Emmett is remarkable for being very strong even though all vampires are very strong. Brother Jasper can influence other people's emotions, which Stephenie Meyer forgets during and after the second book in the series. He is paired off with Alice. She can see the future, with the accuracy of her visions varying by current plot convenience. Edward also has a special ability in that he can read minds, except for Bella's. This causes Edward to think Bella is unpredictable, even though she is not.

The book begins when Bella moves to Forks, Washington, a place that she hates. Forks is rainy and cloudy, and Bella hates rain and clouds. Approximately 30% of Twilight is Bella complaining about the weather. Bella moves in with her father, Charlie, whom she refers to by his first name because she does not respect him. (Bella used to live with her mother, Renee, whom she thinks is stupid.) Charlie's character traits are not saying much and watching sports. (He is also the local police chief, which does not matter to the story.)

Bella whines before her first day of school how none of the other kids will like her. On her first day of school, all the other kids love her for reasons that are never explained. Bella whines about this, and treats everyone who tries to talk to her with scorn. The one exception to the rule that everyone loves Bella is Edward Cullen, who looks at her like he hates her and then does not come back to school for a week. Bella is sad and whines about this, because she misses the one person in the entire school who was rude to her. When Edward returns, he is inexplicably nice to her, which she whines about.

One day, Bella is almost killed by a van, but Edward demonstrates inhuman speed and strength to save her life. Since she was nearly killed by a van, she is put into a neck brace and taken to the hospital. Her primary concerns at this time are, in order of her priorities: 1) her embarrassment about being seen in a neck brace 2) her jealousy that Edward is not put in a neck brace 3) her annoyance that the boy who was driving the van keeps apologizing to her and 4) trying to figure out how Edward has inhuman speed and strength. Edward refuses to tell her how he has inhuman speed and strength.

After two chapters of nothing happening, Bella takes a trip to the beach with the friends she does not like. There she meets Jacob Black, a boy about her own age who is actually pleasant. The existence of Jacob proves that Stephenie Meyer can in fact write a character who is likable, but raises the question of why she so rarely exercises that ability. After Jacob hints that he knows something about the Cullen family, Bella strategically manipulates him to get him to tell her what it is. Jacob then tells of her of his tribe's legends about as-yet-unnamed, blood-drinking, supernatural creatures, which the Cullens are the said to be. Later, Bella uses "her favorite search engine" to Google vampires.

Bella takes a trip with girls she does not like but calls her friends anyway to a nearby town to shop. Bella eventually goes somewhere on her own and, because she is a girl, and therefore has no sense of direction, she gets lost. She is set upon by some rapists or something, but just in the nick of time, Edward saves her. It turns out that he knew where she was because he had been stalking her. Bella is fine with that. By the end of the evening, Bella and Edward have discussed how Edward is a mind-reading vampire who instinctively wants to kill Bella and drain her blood. Bella is fine with that. Also, Edward and Bella are now in love for some reason.

Now that they are in true love, Edward takes Bella to a beautiful meadow, where Bella tells us again, some more, about how beautiful Edward is. They talk and talk about their love and stare at each other. This is also when we find out that when Twilight vampires are exposed to sunlight, it does not hurt them. They merely sparkle as if covered with diamonds. True story.

Edward rips up some trees and runs around to demonstrate how dangerous he is. He tells Bella how much he loves the way she smells and how he is downright addicted to her stank. He tells her she's an idiot for wanting to be with him. ("You're an idiot" is a real quote. Page 274.) Bella describes how Edward sparkles and how kissing him is like kissing a cold, hard statue. This is all meant to be sexy.

It turns out that Edward has been breaking into Bella's bedroom for months in order to watch her sleep. Bella is only upset about this because she thinks she may have said something embarrassing while sleeping. Once she finds out, Bella lets Edward stay over every single night. This is not hard to hide from Charlie because Edward and Bella are much cleverer than him.

Bella meets Edward's family. Because they are better than normal people, the Cullens are very rich. Edward's parents are stoked to meet Bella, because no one can be happy until and unless they are paired off with a person of the opposite sex. After we learn about how Carlisle became a vampire and that Edward has many CDs, it is time for Vampire Baseball.

Vampire Baseball can only be played during thunderstorms because the sound of a super-strong vampire hitting a ball with a bat is so loud. Vampires pitch and hit the ball so hard that Bella can't even see it, but even though the ball travels so far after being hit, there aren't many home runs because vampire outfielders are so fast. Vampire Baseball is so stupid.

After Vampire Baseball, on page 372, the plot finally shows up. Some evil vampires show up, and one of them decides he wants to kill Bella for some reason. It is decided that Bella should leave town, but first she needs to "pretend" to be incredibly cruel to Charlie so she doesn't have to tell him the real reason she's leaving. She then goes with Alice and Jasper to Phoenix.

Twilight somehow becomes more boring at this point, with pages and pages describing Bella hanging out in a hotel room being bored and sad. (She is not sad because someone is trying to kill her, but because Edward isn't there.) The evil vampire lures Bella away from her protectors by telling her he has her mother and must come alone to a ballet studio. Once Bella gets there, the evil vampire reveals that he does not have her mother. He also reveals his entire backstory, thought process, and evil plan in an endless monologue. A climactic fight finally occurs when Edward et al. track them to the ballet studio, but we the readers do not get to see it because Bella has been knocked unconscious.

Bella wakes up in a hospital. Her family has been told that she's injured not because of Vampire Violence, but because--wait for it!--she fell down the stairs. Imaginative! (People believe this because Bella is very clumsy. I know I haven't mentioned that yet but don't worry; if you read the book Stephenie Meyer will remind you of it on every other page.)

In the end, Bella goes back to Forks, and Edward tricks her into going to prom. As she does with parties, presents, all forms of attention, and joy, Bella hates prom. Bella tells Edward she wants to become a vampire, and as Edward does with all of Bella's hope and initiates, he says no. After almost 500 pages, the book mercifully ends.

The bad news is that there are three more to go.

For more information on Twilight, please consult these sources:
Reasoning with Vampires: Dana is grammatically editing the Twilight books with grim determination, just like someone should have before allowing them to be published.

Mark Reads: Mark provides a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the heartbreaking insanity that is the Twilight saga. I irrevocably and unconditionally love Mark.

LDS Sparkledammerung!: This is a very hilarious Twilight summary/explanation of Twilight's semi-hidden Mormon propaganda. Helpful Bjork-as-Alice jpegs!

Cleolinda's Thoughts On Twilight: Cleolinda is of the "Twilight is stupid but I still loved it!" school of thought which I respect if disagree with.

The Cracked Guide to Twilight: A good primer for all four books.

Finally, there's Alex Reads Twilight. Have you ever wanted to hear a cheeky English boy tell you all about Twilight as he reads it? Of course you have.

Harry Potter Thoughts: Order of the Phoenix

2011-01-05T21:52:00.000-06:00

I maintain that Goblet of Fire is my favorite of the Harry Potter books, but Order of the Phoenix is also way up there. Yes, it's angsty, but it's also very, very funny. It's our introduction to Luna Lovegood, so how could it not be?

I love Luna.

Thoughts:
1) Speaking of Luna, I think the choice of Evanna Lynch is probably the second-best casting decision in the entire Harry Potter film series. The casting overall is very good--how lucky were they that Daniel Radcliffe turned out to be so talented?--so that's high praise. I say it's second because Robbie Coltrane is so perfect as Hagrid. I have my own mental version of most of the characters when I read the books, but book Hagrid and movie Hagrid are identical to me.

2) I love how Harry's escape from Privet Drive in this book is mirrored in the final book. The key to it is how everybody mocks Moody this time for being overcautious and acting like somebody might die, whereas in the last book, well, you know.

3) It must be said--all of Dumbledore's decisions vis a vis prefects are stupid. Except for making Hermione one. Why would he make power-mad weasel Draco Malfoy a prefect? Why would he do that? Why would he make Ron a prefect? Ron shows us over and over again that he's not willing to stand up to his house's biggest troublemakers, his brothers, and why would Dumbledore expect him to? I have a higher opinion of Ron's testicular fortitude than most, but I still think making him a prefect was dumb. Most of all, why would Dumbledore wish he could have made Harry a prefect? And would Harry expect to become one? He breaks rules all the time! And not just to fight Dumbledore or whatever--he breaks rules to chill out in Hogsmeade or hang out at Hagrid's hut all the time. There's no higher purpose there; it's just for fun. Seriously, why didn't Dumbledore chose Dean? Dean was clearly the way to go there.

I can't argue with the choice of Hermione, though. I guess that was an OK decision.

4) I don't particularly care for Ginny (J.K. quite often fell into the trap of "telling" instead of "showing" us why Ginny's supposed to be great), but I give her this: she's good to Neville.

5) Everyone but Harry and Ron are right: Hagrid is an awful teacher. Just execrable. Why did Dumbledore hire him for that?

I like Professor Grubbly-Plank. Also, she and Professor Sprout would probably make a pretty cute couple. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

6) The part where Harry has a conversation with Ron and Hermione about just having kissed Cho is pretty much my favorite scene in the entire series. Again: this book is funny. ("Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have," has, at multiple times in the past, caused me to laugh and laugh and laugh.)

7) OK, fellow Potter Hindsight Detectives, take-a look-a this passage from page 470 (just after Harry tells Dumbledore that he's had a vision of a giant snake attacking Mr. Weasley): "Dumbledore now swooped down upon one of the fragile silver instruments whose function Harry had never known, carried it over to his desk, sat down facing [Harry and Professor McGonagall] again, and tapped it gently with the tip of his wand.
"The instrument tinkled into life at once with rhythmic clinking noises. Tiny puffs of pale green smoke issued from the minuscule silver tube at the top. Dumbledore watched the smoke closely, his brow furrowed, and after a few seconds, the tiny puffs became a steady stream of smoke that thickened and coiled in the air. . . . A serpent's head grew out of the end of it, opening its mouth wide. . . .
" 'Naturally, naturally,' murmured Dumbledore apparently to himself, still observing the stream of smoke without the slightest sign of surprise. 'But in essence divided?'
"Harry could make neither head nor tail of this question. The smoke serpent, however, split itself instantly into two snakes, both coiling and undulating in the dark air. With a look of grim satisfaction Dumbledore gave the instrument another gentle tap with his wand: The clinking noise slowed and died, and the smoke serpents grew faint, became a formless haze, and vanished."

So . . . what was that thing? Do we ever find out? Does it tell use anything we didn't already know by this point in the narrative (that Harry's seeing into Voldemort's mind, duh)? What's "in essence divided?" Is that a Horcrux hint? Why does Dumbledore need a snake-vision-confirmation machine?

8) When Mrs. Weasley comes home from the hospital after Mr. Weasley passes the crisis point, she says that Bill is with his father now, having taken "the morning off work." The morning? Your dad gets 85% killed by an enormous evil mind-meld horcrux snake and you don't use up a whole sick day?! C'mon, Bill!

9) I like the hints J. K. drops (which you might miss the first time around) that Kreacher has left Sirius's house for a while. That's how you foreshadow without just giving away the plot in advance, Stephenie Meyer.

10) Hermione skips skiing with her parents over Christmas to hang out with Harry and the Weasleys at Grimauld Place. This continues the books' minor theme that Hermione really, really could not care less about her parents.

11) One of my favorite illustrations of the wizard/Muggle divide is when Mr. Weasley hesitantly tells his wife that he's been experimenting with Muggle remedies for his snake bite wounds: "Well . . . well, I don't know whether you know what--what stitches are?"
"It sounds as though you've been trying to sew your skin back together," said Mrs. Weasley with a snort of mirthless laughter, "but even you, Arthur, wouldn't be that stupid--"
And then Harry hightails it out of there in anticipation of a major Mrs. Weasley conniption.

12) Does Dumbledore ever do anything more awesome than when escapes his office out from the Minister of Magic's nose? ("Well--it's just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to--what is the phrase? 'Come quietly.' I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius.") I submit that he does not.

13) Harry's dad, as we learn from Snape's worst memory, was a horrible human being as a teenager. Is that what Harry would have been like if his parents had lived, and he'd been a regular, rich, talented kid instead of a poor grubby orphan? . . . Maybe his mom's influence would have prevented it.

14) This book also contains Hagrid's most awesome moment: when, Hulk-like, he beats down a half-dozen Aurors. Go Hagrid.

15) Unfortunately, this book also contains the stupid Hagrid development, Grawp. The worst thing about Grawp is not that Hagrid is stupid for trying to keep his giant brother in the woods like some particularly horrible pet, but (as Neal as pointed out to me) that Grawp has no bearing on any plot developments in the future. What was the point of Grawp, J. K.? What was the point?

16) When Dumbledore finally spills the beans about the prophecy that foretold that Harry would have to kill Voldemort or vice versa, Harry asks what power he could have that could enable him to beat Voldemort. As we know, the answer is love. (No, really.) The weird part is that Dumbledore introduces this answer by saying "There is a room n the Department of Mysteries . . . that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there."

Really? I mean, I believe love is powerful and all, but . . . there's a room? Of love? The Love Room? I assume they don't call it that, as it would probably give people the wrong impression, but still.

17) Finally, here are some more quotes that I think are funny:

"How do you remember stuff like that?" asked Ron, looking at her in admiration.
"I listen, Ron," said Hermione with a touch of asperity.

[Re: Ernie Macmillan, the pompous Hufflepuff kid (a minor character I enjoy more upon each re-reading)] He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry, "Surely not!"

"Dangerous?" said Hagrid, looking genially bemused. "Don' be silly, I wouldn' give hey anythin' dangerous! I mean, all righ', they can look after themselves--"

[Hermione thanks the boys for her Christmas presents:] "Thanks for the book, Harry!" she said happily. "I've been wanting that New Theory of Numerology for ages! And that perfume is really unusual, Ron."
"No problem," said Ron.

Harry Potter Thoughts: Goblet of Fire

2010-12-09T17:55:00.003-06:00

I'm frustrated with myself because I know a lot of things occurred to me as I re-read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but then I forgot them. I'll try to take notes when I read the final three books.

Anyway.

This has always been my favorite book of the series. It never fails to impress me how from the time Harry enters the maze at the final of the Triwizard Cup until Dumbledore finishes interrogating Barty Crouch, jr., it's edge-of-your-seat, can't-put-it-down reading. It doesn't let up. It's awesome.

It doesn't hurt that this is the book where we finally start getting some Ron-Hermione tension of the romantic variety. I love Ron + Hermione.

More thoughts:

1. Fake Moody's plan is so needlessly elaborate. He gained Harry's trust pretty early on and, since Dumbledore wasn't suspicious of him, could have just lured Harry away from Hogwarts and disapparated with him or whatever. Heck, he could have gotten Harry onto a bus to Little Hangleton with some vague promise of investigation or adventure or whatever. Harry's easy.

2. Neal wanted me to point out that this is the book where Hermione's character starts to get morally comprised. Um, Hermione, sweetie? It's not OK to imprison a human woman (disguised as a beetle or not) in a little glass jar for a week or two because she annoyed you or whatever. There's also the blackmail aspect to be concerned about, but the imprisonment thing is worrisome enough.

3. Harry and the other champions have to compete in three events, each of which probably take less than two hours. So they get out of final exams and the entire Quidditch season gets cancelled because . . . ? I mean, other than getting J. K. out of writing Quidditch matches, of course.

4. While I'm on the subject of Quidditch, I might as well address the subject of Quidditch. It's one of the real weaknesses of the entire series. Rowling admitted in interviews that she doesn't really know much about sports and that the matches were chores for her to write. The former point is not surprising--Quidditch is a pretty terrible sport.

People on flying broomsticks throwing balls through very high hoops? That's great. That's a great sport for wizards to play. Adding a second kind of ball that zooms around trying to knock players off their brooms? Also great! It's funny, very much in keeping with the little absurdities of Rowling's wizarding universe. But the snitch, you guys. The snitch.

The fact that catching the snitch both ends the game and earns the catching team 150 points (when each goal is only worth 10) pretty much ruins the whole thing. Yes, in Goblet of Fire, we see a team lose despite getting the snitch. I know. That is, however, the only time we see that happen, and you would think it would indeed be pretty rare. It's just too much.

The snitch is, of course, a device that allows Harry to be an indisputable, individual hero even in a team game. Quidditch works great as a plot device, but as a sport, it's awful.

Also, if it's such a big deal, why does Hogwarts only hold six games a year (when the tournament isn't canceled, of course)? And if there are only four teams at what seems to be the only wizarding school in the British Isles, how can the British Isles also support at least one professional Quidditch league? Wouldn't it be easier to make it onto a professional squad than a Hogwarts house team?

Those problems all pale beside the snitch, though.

5. Back to the Triwizard Tournament--it sounds like a really terrible spectator event. The dragon-fighting contest would be pretty cool to watch, obviously, but the others? In the second task, the crowd had to just sit there for over an hour waiting for the champions to emerge from the lake. In defense of Muggles--we would have set up some dang underwater video cameras so we didn't have to rely on Merperson testimony to find out what happened down there. The third task would have been pretty cool to watch if the crowd were high enough to see everything that happened in the maze, but they weren't. Again, J. K. Rowling: not great with the sports.

6. Honest question: how are supposed to feel about house elves? Hermione makes what seem to be extremely good points about how they're slave labor since, after all, they're slave labor. However, her crusade is played for laughs, and none of the other characters agree with her. Ron and his brothers are from a pretty relaxed and groovy wizard family, but they see no problem with how house elves are treated. All the house elves we meet besides Dobby are A-OK with doing unpaid, unquestioning labor, and even Dobby would rather be paid a pittance than a fair wage. Dumbledore, for agreeing to pay Dobby, seems the closest to Hermione's point of view. Even then, it seems like he's being indulgent, not any kind of activist.

Maybe it's just as well that I didn't take notes, since this was plenty long as is.

It'll be just a bit until I start Order of the Pheonix, I think, because I'm halfway through the Twilight "saga." Speaking of, should I share my thoughts on that? I'd kind of like to, but there are already lots of places on the internet where you can read criticism of Twilight.

My Hair is Out of Control

2010-12-03T11:08:00.004-06:00

I've been saying this for months, but I have got to get a haircut.

I like having long hair, but "elbow-length" is pushing it.

I mentioned this on Twitter, but I weirded out a baby (she's about a year and half old) with my hair last month. She was playing with my ponytail, so I was like, here--let me take it down so you can see it all--and she just stared at me. Like, "Dude, I don't even know what I'm seeing right now . . . What is happening?" kind of stare. (On the other hand, though, my niece Eliza had a pretty good time using my hair for braiding practice.)

Places I could fit in right now:

Woodstock
Amish Country
The Garden of Eden
The Addams' family mansion:

Neal's Epic-ly Spoilerific and Spoilerific-ly Epic Deathly Hallows Review

2010-11-19T22:07:00.050-06:00

Grade: B (I think Rachel would rate it higher, but I'll let her explain that later)
So, this afternoon, Rachel and I got to take in the latest installment of the Harry Potter film franchise. I went in concerned, with my expectations fairly low. I had read some decidedly mixed reviews.

(Click above on the title of this post to continue my spoiler-filled review.)

The reviews I saw tended to offer the following criticisms:

-Holy crap, that was a lot of camping

-Kind of boring, also, did anyone notice all the camping?!

-The young actors couldn't hold their own. Also, you know, the camping thing.

Having now seen the film, I don't think any of these criticisms are particularly fair. For one, there is a lot of camping in the first 2/3 of Deathly Hallows, completely unavoidable for the filmmakers, at least to a certain degree. Secondly, I think all the young actors did fairly well, but more on that below.

As for the plot, anyone geeky enough to start reading a Harry Potter film review on their friend's blog has probably read the book. The film is actually very faithful to the book.

After quick establishing shots of the Trio at their respective homes (including Hermione's), we get Voldemort's meeting with his Death Eaters, escape to the Burrow, wedding, escape from the wedding, Grimmauld Place, break-in to the Ministry, camping, camping, camping, fight, Ron leaves, sad camping, sad camping, sad camping, Godric's Hollow, snake attack, sad camping, Ron returns, Horcrux destruction, slightly-happier camping, Lovegoods', Deathly Hallows explanation, chase, capture, torture, escape, death . . .

As you can see from my overall grade, the film pulls most of this off quite well. Yes, even the camping. Here's my breakdown of what I liked, didn't like, and thought was just OK:

The Good:

Daniel Radcliffe: This isn't too surprising. I think Radcliffe is an all-around solid actor who has generally done a good job playing Harry. Here, he hits all the necessary emotional beats, without overplaying them. Seeing his parents' graves for the first time, Harry tears up and is clearly moved, choking out a glum "Merry Christmas, Hermione" while Hermione puts her arm around him. Radcliffe avoids the chance to create an Oscar clip by weeping and yelling "Noooooooo!!!" while falling to his knees. Well played, Radcliffe.

He's funny too. The scene where Radcliffe has to play six of Harry's own doppelgangers is very, very funny, and well-acted. You can actually tell who's who just based on Radcliffe's posture and facial expression.

Finally, it must be said that he has excellent on-screen chemistry with Emma Watson (more on that below), which works to the film's advantage during the admittedly long 'sad camping' phase after Ron's departure.

Emma Watson: OK, this is a surprise. For most of the previous six films, Emma Watson has gotten by on an often-terrible combination of one 'concerned' face, one 'scared' face, a 'sad face,' disconcertingly-rapid eyebrow movements, and more recently the fact that she's (at the age of 20) very, very pretty. Please understand that I mean this in the least-pervy way possible. Rachel and I had a whole conversation about this on the way home. In this film, the filmmakers really go out of their way to try to make the Trio look scruffy, tired, and worn out. The boys are both dirty and bestubbled for most of the proceedings. Hermione, on the other hand, looks all freckly and adorable no matter what. Don't underestimate the importance of this for her future career as an actress. Other pretty actresses have gotten by on less talent.

Here, though, Rachel and I both thought she did a good job. Like Radcliffe, she hits all the necessary emotional beats, from sobbing over a bleeding and unconscious Ron to screaming and writhing in agony as Bellatrix carves the word 'mudblood' into her arm (yes, this actually happens). Life Radcliffe, she has some nice, quietly-played moments where she avoids the temptation to overact. Well played, Watson.

Ministry Break-In: This is one of most compelling, and often funny, segments of the film. As I'm sure you know, the Trio have to disguise themselves as Ministry employees in order to break in and steal the the Slytherin locket Horcrux from Dolores Umbridge. The reason this series of scenes works so well is that the adult actors who play the disguised Trio all do a great job. Especially David O'Hara, who plays Harry and is without question the secret MVP of the movie. It's hard to explain unless you see it, but he's hilariously convincing as Harry/Radcliffe in disguise.

Harry-Hermione Slow Dance: When I first read in an early review of the movie that Harry cheers up a depressed Hermione (post-Ron departure) by slow dancing with her to a Nick Cave song, I assumed this was going to be Harry Potter's biggest "Hey! Is that the Fonz on water skis?!" moment since Grawp snatched up Hermione in Order of the Phoenix (Man, was that a stupid scene). And yet, it works. It really works. Radcliffe and Watson deserve all the credit in the world. They clearly have a very real, lived-in friendship that comes across nicely on screen. A surprisingly-touching little moment that could have easily seemed awkward and forced. Well-played, Radcliffe and Watson.

Destroying the Slytherin Locket Horcrux: I'm a little torn here, because this scene ultimately falls a little flat once the Horcrux is destroyed. It makes the 'good list' all the same because it's the source of one of the most incredibly-palpable moments of "is this actually happening!!!?? IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING!!!????" tension I've ever experienced in a packed movie theater.

After Ron rescues Harry and retrieves the sword of Gryffindor from the frozen pond, Harry opens the locket using Parseltongue. At this point, an evil, scarier version of the smoke monster from Lost explodes out of the locket, sending Ron and Harry flying backwards in opposite directions. Horcrux-Voldemort's taunting of Ron culminates in the appearance of shiny, evil versions of Harry and Hermione who tell Ron that he's worthless, and then proceed to full-on make out . . . in the nude. How nude? This is a conversation from the car ride home:

Me: Am I taking crazy pills, or was there actually some side boob there?
Rachel: Oh, there was totally side boob!! IT WAS BANANAS!!

Again, I can't stress enough how fun it was to be in a packed theater of Harry Potter fans who were collectively losing their crap. Also, kudos to Radcliffe and Watson for really, really not holding back. Even if we all realize later that this scene was way overwrought (very possible), it was still an incredibly-enjoyable theater moment.

Deathly Hallows Animation: This was completely unexpected and very cool. When the Trio visit a clearly-depressed and distracted Xenophilius Lovegood for info on the strange symbol Hermione keeps coming across, he has Hermione read 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' from the book Dumbledore left her. Hermione's narration is accompanied by some really cool animation that explains the origins of the three Deathly Hallows. One of the nicest surprises of the film. Of course, everything goes downhill for the film after this scene (a full rant on that below).

Little Moments: The filmmakers do a great job of building in little moments to reward fans of the books. Harry does wake up in Grimmauld Place to find that Ron and Hermione fell asleep holding hands (and yes, Ron is on the floor). Ron and Harry speak appreciatively about the little portable fires Hermione is so good at making (a nice call back to the first book). We also get some great Fred and George stuff early in the film ("I'm holey, Fred"). The list could go on. Good job, filmmakers.

Honorable Mentions: Godric's Hollow snake fight, Hermione erasing her parents' memories of her.

The Just OK:

Rupert Grint: Yeah, I know, he's an easy target. The fact that he's a slightly odd-looking guy is not aided by the fact that he continues to sport one of the worst haircuts any actor has ever had. Grint has been blamed by many fans for the often extreme wimpification of Ron that occurred in many of the earlier films. While much of that comes down to the screenwriters and directors, it's still easy to dislike Grint for his love of goofy facial expressions and high-pitched whining.

And yet, by the halfway point of this film, my opinion of him had completely turned around. He's very good in the early stages of the film, especially in a scene where he confronts Harry in one of his inevitable "No one else is going to die for me!" moods. He's equally good at playing Ron's descent into paranoia and resentment under the influence of the Slytherin locket Horcrux. He, Radcliffe, and Watson are all great in the big argument scene.

Then, he returns, and while he does a passable job in the Horcrux destruction scene, things quickly go downhill from there (More on that below).

Ron-Hermione Reunion: So, once Ron and Harry have vanquished the smoke monster, they head back to camp to meet up with Hermione, but not before Ron quips, "just think, only three more to go!" Parenthetically, I was a little disappointed they cut the whole "Dude, seriously, she's like my sister, bro" conversation Harry and Ron have at that point in the book.

Meanwhile, back at the tent, Hermione awakes to find that Ron has returned to the Scooby Gang. After the requisite slapping and hitting of Ron, Hermione looks on coldly as Ron explains how he found his way back to Harry and Hermione.

*incredibly cheesy music begins to swell in the background*

Now, keep in mind, the movie had actually been pretty stellar up to this point (at least in my opinion), but now for the first time I thought "uh oh . . . "

Ron, accompanied by a painfully overwrought score, explains how he heard Hermione's voice on the radio, opened the Deluminator, a ball of light touched his heart, bla, bla, bla. None of this is really Grint's fault. He does a decent job with the speech, and it's straight out of the book, but the music kind of makes it all fall flat. Meh.

Dobby: Dobby of course makes his triumphant return in this film, and the filmmakers do a good job of working him into the story before the whole "And now, for some reason, Dobby is here!" rescue at Malfoy Manor. The CG animation looks good, and the voice actor does a fine job, but the film often deflates essential tension so that Dobby can have all his big moments. In the film, it's kind of Dobby's own fault he takes a knife to the chest. At the climax of the fight in Malfoy Manor, with Ron, Harry, a rescued Hermione, and the goblin all gathered together and ready to disapparate, Dobby inexplicably pauses to give his cheesy "Dobby is a free elf!!" speech. Many of the people in the theater loved this, meanwhile all I could think was: DISAPPARATE! YOU IDIOT!!!!

Dobby's death is handled well, with Radcliffe convincingly crying over what was (I assume) a rubber doll with golf balls for eyes. I don't know. I can only get so worked up over a CG muppet. Meh.

The Villains: I'm lumping all of these characters together, because the problems are more with the writing and directing than with the actors. Ralph Fiennes is terrific as Voldemort (and I actually didn't really like him that much in Goblet of Fire), but we don't get to see much of him after the big Death Eater sit-down that starts the film. Helena Bonham Carter does a good job as Bellatrix, especially during her creepy confrontation with Hermione, but she is horribly undermined by her wardrobe. I'm sorry, but a woman wearing a set of fake teeth and Elvira hair can only be so scary.

The main villains for much of the film are actually the 'Snatchers,' bandits who maraud the countryside looking for fugitives. Ultimately, they're kind of a dud as a group of villains. The main Snatcher is basically presented as a Hermione-sniffing pervert. Weird? Yes. Slightly unsettling? Maybe. Scary? Not really.

This is why The Lord of the Rings had Orcs.

Slightly Weird/Unintentionally Funny: Neither Ron nor Harry gives two farts about Hermione's parents. Despite frequent melancholy statements like, "I used to come here with Mum and Dad, of course, they wouldn't remember that now, or me . . . " Ron and Harry never inquire further or show the slightest interest in why she's so upset.

The Bad:

Chase and Capture: After their meeting with Xenophilius Lovegood goes south, the Trio have to quickly disapparate to avoid getting caught by Death Eaters. They reappear in some woods where they run right into a set of Snatchers, led by the Hermione-Sniffing Pervert.

"Snatch them!" he says. (audible groan)

And so, they run. But why though? Couldn't they grab hands and just disapparate again? Apparition might secretly be one of the biggest logic/continuity errors in the books. When I think about it, I'm not sure I really know all the rules. Anyway, maybe the Trio are just low on MP (appreciative chuckle from those of us who played video games in the early '90's), but they decide to run. There is some cool camera work here, but they of course are captured fairly easily, with Hermione disfiguring Harry so he won't be recognized.

It's not how easily they're captured that deflates all tension from this set of scenes, it's how easily they're held captive. Like Superman, it turns out that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have but one weakness as wizards who have undergone six years of magical training. So, what is Harry Potter's kryptonite?

Having his arms or shirt held lightly from behind . . . yeah, real heroic. After some Hermione sniffing, the Hermione-Sniffing Pervert recognizes Harry and decides that he's taking these fugitives straight to the Big Boss.

When next we see our indomitable heroes, they are being led glumly towards the front gates of Malfoy Manor (Voldemort HQ). Knowing that torture and death surely await them inside, what do our heroes do to attempt escape? Nothing. Are they tied up? No. Magically restrained or incapacitated in any way? No. You see, the Snatchers are lightly pushing them from behind. It would be impossible for them to turn around and try to punch out one of their captors, grab a wand, or disapparate. Wait, why can't they disapparate again? This rant's just getting started . . .

Malfoy Manor: The Trio are led (rather easily) into Malfoy Manor and presented to a gleeful Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy (played brilliantly as a drunken has-been by Jason Isaacs). Once they dispense with the "Is it really him, Draco?" business, Bellatrix recognizes the sword of Gryffindor in the hands of one of the Snatchers, and flips out. She instructs one of her goons (maybe it's Wormtail, I'd have to see it again) to take Harry and Ron down to the cellar, announcing her intentions to question Hermione about the sword.

Now, in the book, aware that their friend is about to be brutally tortured, Ron and Harry have to be dragged kicking and screaming into to the cellar. In the movie, nope, their arms are being held from behind, so they're totally helpless. They allow themselves to be led rather meekly into their prison cell.

This is where the scene falls tragically flat. Give credit to Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Watson, who both at least realized this was the climax of the movie. Emma Watson very convincingly howls in agony as Bellatrix questions her about the sword.

In the book, Ron starts hysterically sobbing at the sound of Hermione's pain and physically hurls himself at the cellar door in a desperate attempt to escape. In the movie, Rupert Grint plays Ron as mildly concerned, at best. Movie Ron tugs lightly on the bars of the door and quickly concludes that they're locked in, so . . .

All the tension created by Hermione's torment is completely deflated by Harry and Ron's weirdly calm and frankly, kind of lame reaction in the cellar. Then of course Dobby shows up to save the day and lets them out.

We're then treated to a very short and perfunctory wand fight as Harry and Ron try to rescue Hermione. Once Dobby drops the chandelier on Bellatrix, Harry very easily takes the wands away from Draco (Seriously! It's the climactic fight of the movie, have the guys throw a few punches!), and they all disapparate.

Just a disappointing conclusion to a good film. In the book, even with Dobby's help, Ron and Harry have to scrape and claw their way out of the cellar (including a deadly confrontation with Wormtail, who is easily dispatched by Dobby here). In the movie, it all goes kind of easy once Dobby shows up. Meh.

Final Thoughts: Despite my epic rant about how disappointing and lame I found parts of the final twenty or so minutes, I overall really enjoyed the movie. David Yates is really good at directing quieter, character-driven moments, but he is not always as good at building and sustaining tension in action scenes. That makes me a little nervous about the finale, but we'll see.

If any of you was brave or crazy enough to read the whole thing, let me know what you thought about the movie or my review in the comments.

Harry Potter Thoughts

2010-11-17T17:58:00.002-06:00

I decided that, in preparation for watching the new Harry Potter movie this Friday (we've got our tickets!), I should re-read all seven in order. (I meant to re-read the first six before the seventh one came out, but that didn't happen, so this will be the first time I've done the seven in a row.) I didn't budget quite enough time, so I won't be able to finish before the movie, but oh well. What I can do is share some observations I've been making about the beginning of the story now that I know how it all ends.

Here are some notions I've entertained, just having finished #3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

1) J. K. didn't hide a ton of clues about the future in Book 1, but I enjoy the ones that are there. My favorite is Harry's creeping sensation that Snape can read minds.

2) Draco Malfoy may be the worst-written character in the series. (At least through the first three books.) He is unrelentingly horrible--just no redeeming characteristics at all--yet in no way a threat. He never bests Harry at anything, and besides being a little dumb, is a huge coward. It bothers me that Harry and his pals hardly ever have good comebacks for him, when he is nothing but comic relief. Example: Malfoy goes on and on and on and on about Harry fainting because of the dementors. But then he pulls a total drama queen when Buckbeak scratches him. How do Harry and Ron not kill him for that? He gave them so much material!

Let's contrast this with Snape: Snape is a mean, petty little man, but not only is he the secret hero in Book 1, he's also right a lot of the time. Yes, it's always wrong how he treats children (a grown man has no excuse to be that much of a bully to 11- and 12-year-olds), but he has a point when he talks about Harry being an inveterate rule-breaker and how Dumbledore unreasonably favors him.

3) The climax of the Prisoner of Azkaban movie is actually much better than the book's. Heresy, I know, but the structure is much tighter and more suspenseful in the film. In the book, there are only a few, fleeting high-pressure moments on Harry and Hermione when the go back in time; in the movie, the second run-through is (as I recall) more exciting the first. Good job, screenwriter and director.

4) I really, really love the scene where Harry first meets Ron. It's so cute. Plus, it highlights one of the most interesting aspects of the Ron-Harry friendship: how each one is jealous of what the other has. (Ron wishes he had Harry's fame and money; Harry wishes he had Ron's family and wizarding-world knowledge.)

5) I finally figured out how Harry could have gotten along with the Dursleys. I've always felt like there was something he could do to try to live more peaceably with them, because although it's mostly their fault, it's a little him, too. "Keep a civil tongue in your head" clearly wouldn't be enough, though, since they're so horrible. But! Harry has lots of wizard money, and the Dursleys like regular money. He should have just converted some of his cash into some Muggle cash and paid them to be nicer to him. Heck, he could just have paid off Dudley, because Vernon and Petunia don't really get set off unless Dudley (or an owl of some sort) is involved. All he'd need to do was set an amount they (or he) would earn at the end of the summer if they avoided verbally and physically abusing him and decrease the amount any time they (or he) crossed the line. Harry's second-biggest life problem: solved.

One Book I Did Not Like

2010-11-06T10:23:00.003-05:00

Ahoy there!

In my first effort to get back in the blogging saddle, I'm going to repeat something I already wrote on the internet. Baby steps!

I just finished this book called Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It. As you will be able to tell from my Goodreads review, it did not live up to my expectations:

I saw this book come through at my library, and I thought "What a great topic for a book!" And it is a great topic. It's too bad it was, in my opinion, really mishandled.

The book has quite a bit of breadth (74 "states" are covered), but no depth. Each "state" gets two pages, one of which is a full-page map. The facing page contains more pictures (which are often only tangentially related to the topic); lots of tepid, uncreative jokes; and a little information.

The maps range from interesting to out-and-out bad (one clearly has hand-drawn marker on it; one has Wyoming on the western border of Kansas--which is the reason I downgraded the book from two stars). I think there were . . . maybe four? historical facts that I learned from a 160-page book, but the history was, in places, just as bad as the maps (quote: "[George Washington] was the most popular and powerful man in the world." WILDLY FALSE. WILDLY.)

I don't know who this book is aimed at. It doesn't give enough background information to teach much to American history novices (it would have helped a little if the order of the "states" were chronological instead of alphabetical), and it's too superficial to teach anything to people who already have solid American history background.

In short, this is a book with the pace and tone of an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, but without the depth or intelligence.

Things I Found In Or On Library DVD Cases Today

2010-09-27T14:55:00.002-05:00

a half-smoked cigarette

honey?

frosting?

Work Story

2010-09-21T10:28:00.003-05:00

Last night, two of my co-workers and I noticed this cookbook all about recipes you can make in a 9x13 pan. We were all pretty excited about how good it looked.

While we were geeking out about the book, an 11-(or so)-year-old girl came up to the desk and was like, "Ooh, what book is it?"

My co-worker Acacia: "It's a cookbook."

Girl: " . . . oh."

And it hit me: grown-ups are boring.

I still brought the cookbook home with me, though.

2010-09-06T21:26:00.003-05:00

What my friend asked me to bring to her place to unstick her bedroom door:
a flathead screwdriver

What I brought to my friend's place to unstick her bedroom door, just in case:
a flathead screwdriver
three additional flathead screwdrivers of varying handle lengths
a Phillips head screwdriver
a hammer
a pair of scissors
a ruler
a wire hanger
a plastic hanger
a flashlight
a bag of small paintbrushes (in case something needed poking with something long and skinny)
ninja star

What my friend used to unstick her bedroom door:
a flathead screwdriver

After the door opened, I tried to convince her to let me remove her defective doorknob (with the Phillips head), but she (wisely) decided to wait til after the holiday weekend and let her maintenance people do it.

BlogSpam

2010-08-31T08:41:00.003-05:00

My first line of defense against BlogSpam (which, as those of you with Blogger blogs have no doubt also noticed, has gotten really persistent in recent months) is comment moderation on older posts. For some reason, the spam really loves old posts. Even weirder, the spam loves one post in particular: "If Only I Could Really Do Justice to His Adorableness . . . ", an entry I wrote three years ago about making my own South-Parkified Jim Tressel. At least once a week, I get some comment with poor English and a bunch of nonsensical links, trying to get me to buy or click or something, and I've always found it really weird. Do spammers love Jim Tressel?

If so, I guess spammers and I have something in common.

I didn't really examine the issue until I decided to write this post, but I have now decided that it's because of my use of a certain word that starts with a "diss" and ends with an "atisfied." (If I'm right, I don't want the spammers targeting this post. Although I guess that would be the best way to test my theory.) I guess the spammers are concerned that I'm not wholly content, and they just want to help.

A Few Things

2010-08-18T11:41:00.005-05:00

1. I just want to draw your attention to the sidebar link to Football Gal that says "Still Not Done with Conference Shenanigans." Or the link that I embedded right there. You know, just in case you're interested in that kind of thing.

2. A couple days ago I was making a cup of tea before work, as is my wont, and the kettle started whistling so I grabbed it and poured and I poured water straight from the kettle onto my left hand. I swore only a little, set down the kettle and the mug, shoved the hand under cold water, and . . . my hand was totally fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad I didn't burn the dickens out of my hand, but the whole incident makes me think a little less of my kettle.

3. Project Runway continues to be really good, you guys. Last week they had to make outfits from stuff they bought at a party store, and for the most part the dresses actually looked really good. I was impressed. Also, Tim Gunn cracked up really hard at one point, and it was awesome.

4. Well, when I said "a cup" of tea, I really meant like 15 oz of tea, because I like really huge mugs. Look at this one I got in Dodge City:
It's practically the size of my face!!

5. And in case you're wondering, yes, that picture happened because I've finally discovered the camera in my computer. Neal has made me promise not to record any vlogs, though. (He thinks they're creepy.)

Pet Peeve #388

2010-08-11T22:16:00.004-05:00

What happens when you click on your own Twitter profile:

Twitter. Listen. I am not a five-month old that you're holding up to a mirror. "Who is that tweeter? Who is that little tweeter?! That's you!"

Aggie Football Preview!

2010-08-08T11:50:00.002-05:00

Yep, as is traditional*, I've written my Aggie preview post. But if you want to read it, you've got to go over to Football Gal; that's where it is. If you go and you comment, well you'll just make me the happiest football-blogging girl in the world.

*OK, I didn't really do one in 2007, apparently. I did do the pre-conference games preview, but that's a whole separate tradition.

Project Runway Season 8

2010-08-06T22:44:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I quasi-promised another book entry, but instead I want to talk about TV. Yay, TV!

Last weekend, I was babysitting, and the parents of my baby friend (we hang out and chill) have cable. Thanks to this, I caught most of the season premiere of Project Runway (my friend the baby was asleep by this time). It was pretty good times. Then I found out that Lifetime streams episodes online, so I was able to watch the part I'd missed of the first episode and, this morning, watch the second episode. This has been a revelation to me. I haven't followed the show for years, but I did love it in its heyday (Seasons 1-4, by my count). And I've surprised myself by getting really into it this time around.

Out of the 17 designers they began with, I loathed two of them instantly, deeply, and passionately (Jason and Casanova). But besides those guys, I think I like everyone else. I should be really annoyed by Ivy, but she's so happy. I can't dislike that cute little sprite! In the second episode, poor sweet Mondo broke down a bit about how he feels like people only like him for his talent instead of loving him for himself. I told him (OK, I told my computer screen), "Aww! I love you, Mondo!" That's the way this season is going so far.

One odd thing about this season is that the episodes are now 90 minutes instead of an hour. This is not universally popular, and it sounded like a bad idea to me, but I think it actually works. There's more footage of designer interaction (at their apartments, in the workroom, and most interestingly, backstage during the judging), which doesn't sound intriguing but sort of is; there's more time spent on each outfit on the runway, which is nice; and best of all, there's more quality Tim time! We get to hear him say more to each designer than "I'm worried" and "Make it work!" Although there's still a lot of those phrases, to be sure.

A final element that's going to keep me hooked on this season: Laura Bennett's blog. (Laura Bennett was "The Pregnant One" on Season 3.) Oh. My. Stars. She is so catty and so funny--and she's not just mean about the designs/designers, she also lays into the judges, the product placements, the challenge--the very conceits of the show itself. ("The episode begins with Sarah waking up and thinking that reality-TV competition shows might really be about contestant torture. She is also thinking that it is actually her parents who put presents under the Christmas tree, but she's not sure.") I am enthralled. Absolutely enthralled.

Anyhoodle, if you, like me, don't get to watch Project Runway on a television set, you can watch the first episode here and the second one here. If you are able to watch it on a television set, I'm still jealous. (This week's internet commercial breaks: makeup artist/supervillain Collier Strong* tells you to cover your lips with lipliner before putting on gloss, for some reason. Six times.)

*Observation that Collier Strong looks like somebody who's prone to holding the world hostage with his nuclear arsenal is TM Neal.

**I chose that picture at the top because it looks like a poster for a movie where Heidi is a young ingenue spy in over her head in a world she never made, while Tim looks like the evil, corrupt CIA head who pulls the world's strings from the shadows. I know that's a lot of cliches, but what do you expect from Hollywood?

Edited to add: I just discovered that Tim Gunn vlogs about each episode on his Facebook page! Watch the one for the first episode if you want to hear Tim Gunn say the phrase "crack-smoking judges" repeatedly. I know I did!

Books and Books in Brief

2010-08-04T21:00:00.003-05:00

Again, I've read too many books since my last books and books to put them all in one post. There are four that I want to talk about at length, so I'll do that . . . let's say tomorrow? And the rest I'll try to put in nutshells here.

An Accomplished Woman, by Jude Morgan
This is a modern book written in the vein of Jane Austen, and it's very well done. It started kind of slow--it's one of those things where the protagonist keeps insisting and insisting she's not going to do a particular thing, when OF COURSE she's going to do it, because the narrative demands it, and I hate it when the author delays the start of their real plot that way--but once things get going, it's very entertaining. Not surprising, but entertaining.

She Looks Just Like You: A Memoir of (Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood, by Amie Klempnauer Miller
So boring. Not only is she fairly repetitive, but she focuses on the really standard problems and issues of parenthood--which would be fine if she had an interesting spin or style to put on it, but she just doesn't. She frets a lot over being the "other" mother, but in a dull way. To add insult to injury, she sometimes hints at interesting topics and deliberately skirts them (fleeting glimpses of her own possibly crazy mother go nowhere; there was apparently some drama when she and her partner first got together but she doesn't get into it). She doesn't even have any good stories about people looking at her weird because the baby has two mommies. Once you've read the title, you've gotten as much out of this book as I have.

Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay
This is a kind of fantasy/historical fiction work about 8th Century China, and I was bowled over by how good it was. Even though it was a little uneven, I thought it was, overall, beautifully and masterfully written. I feel like I can't describe it much more without giving things away, so I'll leave it at I loved it, and I'm definitely going to seek out more of his books.

The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas, by Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss
This was the most pretentious book I've ever read, and I used to be in academia. Yeah. It's one-third pretentious instruction about tea (tea bags are evil, find a trusted tea dealer who imports directly from China, use the purest water possible BUT NO DISTILLED!) and two-thirds reference material about different types of tea. Admittedly, I found it a little useful when Neal and I visited a real-live tea shop, but mostly I thought it was inadvertently hilarious.

SuperFreakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Even better than Freakonomics. The first one starts strong and then gets weaker as it goes along; this one is really solid and really interesting all the way through. It's great.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks, by Ree Drummond
I've been visiting her website for a while, and I adapted/adopted her pot roast recipe, but once I brought this cookbook home, Neal has overtaken me as a Pioneer Woman recipe fan. A very few minutes of looking at the book convinced him that we needed to buy it, so we did. It's been a big success.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
Oh man, such a bummer. It's more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but the character Olive Kitteridge--who is a mean, depressed, rather horrible old woman from Maine--ties them together. Some people really like this book, because it is well-written and original. One of my co-workers recommended it to me, and I recommended it to my friend who likes depressing books. She's going to love it.

Ocho Cinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way, by Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco
Prepare to be shocked: this book is pointless. It's written as if Chad is talking to you, so it's not very organized or purposeful. Also, Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco is a ridiculous manchild, as the book does not hesitate to inform you. I finished it, although I couldn't really tell you why.

Books I tried to read but gave up on:
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
The most painfully dated vision of a dystopian future I've ever read or seen.

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake
I picked this one up out of morbid curiosity because a friend of mine hated it (and resented that all the critics who liked The Help also liked this). I got maybe 10 pages into it before I realized she was right--it just came off as stupid. All the dialogue and inner monologues were ickily unrealistic, and then there was a line about the new moon shining and that's where I stopped.

Up next time: two books I really liked, and two in series that I used to like that are now almost unbearably disappointing!

Three Miscellaneous Internet Items

2010-07-24T14:52:00.004-05:00

1. Somehow I just found TheBloggess.com today. I feel like this should have happened much earlier. She's very very funny. (She swears a lot, though, just so you know.) I feel like I've tried to get into blogs by a series of big-personality lady bloggers, and at some point they just get annoying. (I don't want to name any names, because I don't want them to Google themselves and get their feelings hurt.) I'm hoping this is the one that will finally be different.

edited to add: After posting this, I read this "advice" column piece The Bloggess wrote, and at the answer to the second question, I almost had some kind of attack, I laughed so hard.

2. The Fug Girls always have interesting links up on Fridays, and this week they sent me to Catalog Living. I read it all the way through and laughed so hard I thought I might throw up; then I read it all the way through and laughed even harder (though not, luckily, so hard that I actually threw up). I'd explain the premise, but it'll make more sense if you just start reading it.

3. I haven't told you about Wonderella yet! Oversight. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is a pretty funny (and cool-looking, I think) webcomic. I recommend reading it from the beginning, less because there's an important overarching story (there isn't), then because of in-joke progression. Or look at this one if you want a good example. (I know there are better ones, but I lost my "really excellent comics" bookmarks when my last computer died. So many lost Dinosaur Comics . . . .) It's good!

Vacation!

2010-07-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Neal and I just got back from what was easily the most epic roadtrip we have ever undertaken. And, if we've learned our lesson, the most epic roadtrip we will ever undertake. It looked like this:For those keeping track, it was over 2800 miles. That's right; Neal got the oil changed shortly before we left, and will need to get it changed again almost immediately. We saw a lot of great people and did a lot of fun things but seriously, next time we go to Texas from Wisconsin, we are flying.

I'm pretty bad about taking pictures, but I do have this photographic proof that Neal has now been to the A&M campus.
I could also give you photographic proof that we saw Nancy, but the picture of her and me is, to speak only for myself, very unflattering.

I'm totally willing to show you this one of Neal posing with a gigantic quesadilla, though.
Here's what happened: Nancy took us to a (very good) Mexican restaurant in Houston. Nancy and I ordered small quesadillas. As he explained, he thought that if we (dainty women) were getting the small, he should order the large. But then it turned out to be hilariously large.
Once we got to Kansas, the pace of our trip got much more relaxed. (We were in Montgomery, Houston, and College Station for one day apiece before we drove up to Bison.) But we did get to be touristy when my parents took us to Dodge City.
Outside of town, there's a "scenic overlook" which overlooks . . . wait for it . . . a feed lot. You can't see all the cows very well in this one, but here's us pretending to be really psyched:
And here's my dad demonstrating the "scenic overlook" 's most noticeable feature:
(OK, full disclosure: it was actually a cool day and the wind was blowing in a nice direction, so it didn't stink at all. It usually would, though!)

We visited the Boot Hill area and got to witness a real live fake gunfight!

These were some pretty suspicious characters, I tell you what.

We also stopped by the new casino outside of town. Here's my dad illustrating the before and after of casino funtimes:
Although, again, full disclosure, I made money at the casino. That's right! I played the slots for about three minutes, won $139, and immediately stopped playing the slots. (I knew that once was as many times as I was going to be that lucky.) Admittedly, I then "reinvested" $40 playing blackjack, but still!

In conclusion, during those periods in which we were not trapped in our car, good times were had by all!

Another Blog-venture!

2010-07-14T17:08:00.003-05:00

Well, I wanted to put up a picture-filled post about the trip we just got back from, but Blogger's being a jerk about uploading pictures right now. So first, let me tell you about a project upon which I am embarking.

I'm starting yet another new different blog!

I know, I know, I keep saying I'm starting a new blog, and I get all excited about it, and then I post a couple times and then let it quietly die. Well, if that's what happens this time, so be it! I want to start a football blog and I don't care who judges me!

Oh, that's what it is, by the way--a football blog. It's The Football Gal, in fact. (Although the title indicates that I'm calling myself The Football Gal, I've started thinking of the blog itself as Football Gal, which has gotten me thinking of the blog as a "she" instead of an "it." It's kind of weird.)

I'll be posting my Aggie season preview over at Football Gal (see?) pretty soon, but for now, please enjoy some thoughts about the Golden Gophers and the Buckeyes, me making fun of some guys' names, and a poem about an NFL announcer. Also, if you would leave some comments or someday, in the fullness of time, if I do happen to keep up with it, tell your friends about Football Gal. Why, that would make me that happiest gal around.

True Rules

2010-06-24T18:04:00.000-05:00

I'm just finished reading The Happiness Project (and I'll elaborate on this later but, you guys, so good), and one of the topics the author address is what she calls "True rules"--statements of personal truth that you live by, even if you don't necessarily articulate them. (You could also call them rules of thumb or, if you wanted to be fancy, heuristics.) They may be helpful ("Whenever possible, choose vegetables") or unhelpful ("I'm in a hurry"); general ("My children are my most important priority") or specific ("Never eat hors d'oeuvres, and never eat anything at a children's party").

I think you know where I'm going with this--I decided to figure out some of my "true rules."

It never hurts to be polite.

Talk to children like they're people.

Most people are wrong about what the phrase "small town" means.

Don't shop any longer or any harder than absolutely necessary.

Don't think about money any longer or any harder than absolutely necessary.

If something won't get used, throw it away.

Ask questions.

PHEW

2010-06-15T13:12:00.002-05:00

OK, friends, one last conference blog post. Sorry, but writing these is very cathartic for me.

When I found out last night that everybody left in the Big XII is staying in the Big XII, I felt incredibly relieved. And when I say "felt," I mean that I physically felt better--I had apparently been carrying around some tension for the several days that I was consumed by conference realignment.

I want to pause here and give credit to Big XII commission Dan Beebe, whom I've been making fun of for being a loser. While the Pac-10 was making up numbers--oh, I mean coming up with "projections"--for how much money the Pac-16 would bring in (and, as my dad put it, was ignoring how much of this supposed money would be burned up "flying the volleyball team to Corvallis on a Wednesday"), Dan Beebe went out and talked to the real TV networks involved in doling out money. He presented the schools involved with numbers that might actually be connected with reality, and I'm sure he negotiated to make sure those numbers were good. Well done, Dan Beebe. (Although some unknown amount of credit surely goes to unnamed major power players in Texas and perhaps Oklahoma, putting pressure on people behind the scenes.)

I've seen people complaining about this decision on the internet, mostly Aggie fans. Over the weekend, a lot of fan support for joining the SEC welled up, and those people are disappointed that we're A) just doing what t.u. wants to do after all and B) staying in an inferior conference. Both of those points are true, but both of those points are good things.

How dumb would the War Hymn sound if we stopped playing t.u.? It would hurt to lose that Thanksgiving game, and we all know it. It wouldn't have been worth staying with t.u. at all costs (say, joining the stupid Pac-16), but it's a great thing to do at a low cost. And is it a cost?

Being in the SEC might have improved Aggie football--maybe playing in the nation's best football conference would have proven to be a recruiting boon. But would it have offset how many more losses we would have had against beefed up competition? I doubt it. A&M would have lost a lot more games in the SEC, and we all know it. I hope to see the day when A&M re-becomes a contender for conference and national titles, but I believe that day has a better chance of happening sooner (and at all) in the Big XII, however many teams it has.

I do not agree that what happened somehow degraded A&M's "manhood." A&M leadership were never as bootlicky to t.u. as Oklahoma's (not to mention Tech and Oke State, or of course Baylor's sad desperation). They saw that the Pac-16 was not in their school's best interest and didn't play along. Staying in the Big XII was not knuckling under (like joining the Pac-16 would have been), and there's no shame in it. A&M is, if you haven't noticed, getting credit in the national media for averting the Pac-16. All the writers know that t.u. was the big dog in all of this (because, let's face it, they are), but tend to point out that A&M's refusal to go along blindly changed t.u.'s direction. A&M made the right decision, based on the right motivations.

I realize that not everything is magically fixed now, but I see quite a few things to get kind of excited about. Yes, this is not necessarily a permanent solution. Other conferences may still try (and even succeed) to pick off the remaining Big XII teams. Or maybe not--perhaps the brief flirtation with the idea of "superconferences" (which would be terrible) has been just that, and we'll all re-embrace the 12-team conference (it's the best number for a conference). Maybe the Big XII will expand? I would like to see that (remember that thing I just said, about 12 teams?). I like the conference championship game. The obvious target would be TCU; I just don't know who else might be good. Imagine, though, a Big XII conference where Oklahoma and Oke State are in the North Division--that solves some problems.

Well, that's what I think. What do you think?

Edited to add: Oh yeah, and the conference name thing is going to be ridiculous. It was bad enough when the Big Ten having twelve teams and the Big XII having ten teams seemed temporary . . .

More Conference Wackiness

2010-06-11T19:45:00.001-05:00

Another long post, sorry. But now that I've gotten on board the conference expansion punditry bandwagon, I may as well keep going, right?

The thing that happened today: Nebraska "applied for membership" in the Big Ten and its "application" was "accepted." (From the Big Ten's website: "In order for an institution to be admitted to the Big Ten Conference, it must submit a written application, which must then be approved by at least 70 percent of the Big Ten COP/C. The University of Nebraska Board of Regents formally submitted an application to join the Big Ten Conference Friday afternoon. The Big Ten COP/C then met via conference call and approved Nebraska's application".) Clearly, everybody involved had already decided this was going to go down, but when your conference is 114 years old, I think we can forgive a little pretentious formality.

The one thing about this that surprised me is that Nebraska will be moving on this relatively quickly, with "competition to begin in all sports for the 2011-2012 school year." (In contrast, Colorado is expected [as of now] to start competing with the Pac-whatevernumber in 2012.) They might incur some financial penalties for bailing with so little notice, if there remains a Big XII to which to pay penalties. On the bright side, that means there'll just be one really awkward year of Zombie 12 competition. I think we're all relieved about that.

The other item of note from that press release: no hint of an impending conference name-change. Are we really going to have to keep up with this farce of a conference called the Big Ten having a number of members becoming increasingly distant from ten? Not that I have any good suggestions. They can't be the Big Twelve because that's copyrighted and, apparently, cursed.

The other Thing That Happened today was that Boise State moved from the Western Athletic Conference (AKA the Boise State and the Boisettes Conference, AKA the I Guess We All Have to Pay for Flights to Hawaii, Huh? Conference) to the Mountain West Conference, which is a move I find quietly intriguing. As I mentioned in the comments yesterday, I cherish a small hope that perhaps the MWC can make the jump from middling to major conference--they've at least got the best chance of any of the middling conferences to do so. If they're going to, wooing Boise State is a good step (although it will subject MWC fans to watching games played on that awful, awful field).

But enough about things that happened. Let's turn our attention to rumors and speculation!

First of all, it's looking less and less likely that the Big Ten is going to issue an invite to Missouri anytime in the foreseeable future. This is hilarious. They were the ones who've been threatening the rest of the Big XII with leaving for the Big Ten, but I guess they forgot that they were, at best, the Big Ten's third choice. I think their outspoken snittiness at least contributed to the destabilization of the Big XII, so this is enjoyable comeuppance. It's even worse than getting passed over for that bowl game, isn't it, Mizzou?

Second of all, there are some rumors floating around out there that the proposed rat king of a conference, the Pac-16, may not be a sure thing. Yesterday there was outlier talk that perhaps t.u. and A&M would go to the Big Ten while Oklahoma would go to the SEC while Oklahoma State would still end up going to the Pac-10 (for some reason). This scenario would depend (among other things) on t.u. and A&M being able to ditch Texas Tech, since Tech would not meet the Big Ten's academic standards.

Topic to which I will return later: yes, the Big Ten genuinely has academic standards. It's more usual (I believe) to associate the Pac-10 with scholarly snootiness, but they don't have the surprisingly high standards of the Big Ten.

More interesting and more credible rumors have been flying today about the possibility of A&M breaking away from t.u. and doing its own thing--specifically, joining the SEC. Rumblings about this have been reported on Sports Illustrated's site, ESPN, and elsewhere. I just don't know how credible these reports are or, if they are credible, if the sources are just bluffing. I know Gene Stallings told some people that staying with t.u. is not a sure thing, but has anybody else said so? It's true that no A&M sources have seemed as outspoken about wanting to stay with texas as people from Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have, but is that just because A&M doesn't want to look as sycophantic as the Okies? Also, would the Texas legislature allow this to happen? (Is the Texas legislature in session right now? I assume not, since it usually isn't.)

A part of me is kind of hoping for the SEC move to happen. I am not excited about the Pac-16. I'm really not. I don't see how a 16-team conference will even work (the WAC tried it and it failed abysmally). Also, SEC football is the best football but, I realize, that's a double-edged sword. I think it would be fun to be an SEC fan, but I can't pretend than A&M would have an easy time winning there. It would be really, really hard, and A&M has had a hard enough time in recent years that it's tough to be optimistic about our chances in a better conference. Maybe the Pac-16 deal will be for the best, meaning of course "the best" out of a bunch of lousy options.

Sigh.

So, I made the mistake a few times today of reading comments after some articles. What these made clear to me (besides the eternal lesson of "don't read comments") was that the average sports fan/internet commenter knows jack about Texas A&M. A recurring opinion was, in a nutshell, screw A&M, they'd be a better academic fit in the SEC anyway because they suck as a school. This is stupid.

I know that most of the people who read this blog are sympathetic to Texas A&M anyway, but I want to arm you with some facts in case you get into discussions/arguments with other people.

Fact: Texas A&M consistently ranks in the top 25 in US News and World Report's public university rankings; it is 22 this year, 61st overall, and is considered a Tier 1 university. These rankings aren't the last and only word on the quality of academic institutions, but they are widely respected and useful. So:

In the Big 12 as it existed on Monday (that is, with 12 schools), A&M was the second-highest ranked university, trailing only texas. Colorado was the third-highest, at 77.

If A&M were dropped into the Big Ten as it existed on Monday, they would be a little below middle of the pack, tying at 7th with Purdue and Minnesota (behind Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State, and Ohio State. texas would tie at 5th with Penn State; despite its fairly solid academic profile, Colorado would be [and Nebraska will be] dead last in the conference).

If A&M were dropped into the Pac-10 as it existed on Monday, they would come in a trifle higher, at sixth (behind Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, and Washington; because of a wide gap in the middle of the Pac-10, texas would also be/will be? sixth and Colorado is sixth).

If A&M were to join the SEC tomorrow, they would actually drop from their Big XII spot, coming in 4th behind Vanderbilt, Florida, and Georgia. Academically, the SEC is weaker overall, but pretty strong at the top.

The point is, Texas A&M would, academically speaking, easily qualify for any conference out there. (OK, not the Ivy League, but you know what I mean.)

Another Fact: Texas A&M is a member of the American Association of Universities.

The AAU is an important organization of research universities. It only has 63 members, and membership in it is a pretty cut-and-dried signal of academic prestige. One of the ways you can tell that the Big Ten doesn't mess around academically is that every single member of the Big Ten is also in the AAU. Seven old Big XII schools are in it (t.u. and A&M, plus everybody in the North but K-State), seven Pac-10 schools are in it, and only two SEC schools (Vandy and Florida) are in it. This is just another way in which A&M would not only fail to detract from a conference's academic pedigree, but in most cases enhance it.

In conclusion, if anybody tries to tell you that A&M is a stupid school, you will know (if you didn't already) that that person is only showcasing his or her own ignorance.

I'll put the US News and World Report scores I compiled after the break.

The magazine ranks the top half of American colleges, then puts the bottom half unranked into their third and fourth tiers (so, if you divide colleges into quarters, third tier schools are in the second-lowest of those quarters. And no, there's no second tier for some reason).

Old Big 12:
1. t.u.: 47th
2. A&M: 61st
3. Colorado: 77th
4. Baylor: 80th
5. Iowa State: 88th
6. Nebraska: 96th
Kansas: 96th
8. OU: 102nd
Mizzou: 102nd
10. Tech, Oke State, and K-State: third tier

Old Big Ten
1. Northwestern: 12th
2. Michigan: 27th
3. Wisconsin: 39th
Illinois: 39th
5. Penn State: 47th
6. Ohio State: 53rd
7. Purdue: 61st
Minnesota: 61st
9. Iowa: 71st
Indiana: 71st
Michigan State: 71st
(so in the New Big Ten, Nebraska will be #12)

Old Pac-10
1. Stanford: 4th
2. Cal-Berkeley: 21st
3. UCLA: 24th
4. USC: 26th
5. Washington: 42nd
(and here's that gap where Colorado will go, and where t.u. and A&M might go)
6. Arizona: 102nd (where it would tie with OU)
7. Washington State: 106th
8. Oregon: 115th
9. Arizona State: 121st
10. Oregon State: third tier

SEC:
1. Vanderbilt: 17th
2. Florida: 47th
3. Georgia: 58th
4. Auburn: 88th
5. 'Bama: 96th
6. Tennessee: 106th
7. South Carolina: 110th
8. Arkansas: 128th
LSU: 128th
Kentucky: 128th
11: Mississippi State and Ole Miss: third tier (insert obvious Mississippi joke here)

Conference Suicide

2010-06-10T10:52:00.006-05:00

This is a long one, because I've got a lot to say. Buckle up. Oh, and it's only current through 1:30 Central, so keep that in mind.

There have been rumors and rumblings about schools possibly leaving the Big XII for months. I haven't commented about them on the blog before because it's very upsetting to me (this is also why I rarely write about politics). It's upsetting for two reasons: first, I'm very attached to the Big XII. I think it's a very good conference and am going to miss it when it's gone. The second reason is that's all just stupid.

For those of you who haven't been following the story, here's what's up: months ago, the Big Ten (which is comprised of eleven schools, natch) announced that they wanted to expand. This makes perfect sense. Now, athletic conferences affect many sports, but we're just going to focus on football, because, as the thing from whence the money comes, that's what's driving all of these actions. The Big Ten, with its eleven members, can't have divisions or a conference championship. You need 12 to do that. It is also a quirk of the Big Ten football schedule that it wraps up the weekend before Thanksgiving, meaning that it stops getting attention well before the other conferences, who keep playing. (This was also a big deal for the 2006 championship, when much was made of Ohio State's five weeks off from playing compared to Florida's three. It was theorized that all that time away took off tOSU's edge and, indeed, they performed much worse that you would have thought based on how they played during the season.) If the Big Ten had a conference championship, it would extend their pre-bowl season.

The question has always been, who would the Big Ten recruit? The answer seems to be Nebraska. This makes sense for the Big Ten, because it would widen their "TV footprint" (although only by the area of Nebraska, which contains no important TV markets), and of course Nebraska has its impressive football cache and broad fanbase.

Does it makes sense for Nebraska? I suppose it does. Their style of football (some would call it “smashmouth,” others would call it “boring”) fits with Big Ten style. And it makes sense geographically/culturally, I suppose, although not necessarily more sense than the Big XII makes. The real question is why Nebraska would want to leave the Big XII. Is it the different football sensibility (Nebraska having no truck with all that passing nonsense everybody else wants to do)? Is it the disparity between the North and South divisions (which, even though the weak North is good for Nebraska’s win-loss total, makes Nebraska’s schedule look weaker than it needs to be)? Or is it, depressingly, just the money?

The Big XII doesn’t pay out as many millions as the Big Ten as things stand now, mostly (as I understand it) because of the Big Ten Network. The conference owns it, so they get all the profit from the not-inconsiderable number of games they broadcast. This is the weird thing to me: as a resident of Big Ten country, it seems to me that most people around here who actually like watching football games hate the Big Ten Network. It’s expensive to get (being way up on the cable tiers), meaning that Big Ten Network games are games that you have to go to sports bar to watch or that you just miss. Given, I haven’t heard as many complaints about it recently as I did when it first launched, so either the situation has improved or people have gotten used to it. Still, it puzzles me when fans of other conferences talk about how they should get their own network too. It makes sense if you’re making money off of it, but not necessarily if you just want to watch some football.

My theory is that it’s a combination of the money, a desire to join kindred football spirits (who will be more prestigious to defeat than Iowa State yet easier to beat than texas), and a lack of rivalry glue within the Big XII. Whereas texas and Texas A&M don’t go conference-hopping without each other, Nebraska doesn’t have anybody like than in the Big XII. Admittedly, I’m not a huge expert on the mentality of the Nebraska fan, but I don’t feel like they really have anybody fun to hate. KU and K-State are, in the historical view, terrible at football; Nebraska may have a little more going on with Missouri or Colorado, but it’s nothing ESPN announcers gush about, you know? (Also, nobody cares about Iowa State besides maybe Iowa fans for one week a year.) Nebraska’s greatest Big Eight rival was Oklahoma and because of the Big XII’s rigid scheduling, they only play twice every four years (not even every other year; two on and two off). Perhaps this was a mistake. Take the SEC for instance—when it was split into divisions, provision was made for historic rivals to keep playing every year. Tennessee is in the East and Alabama in the West, but since the Tennessee-Alabama game is a big deal, it happens every single year. If Nebraska were playing Oklahoma every year, would it be harder to leave?

There has also been talk of Missouri bolting for the Big Ten (in case they wanted to be the Big T(hirte)en, I guess?) but I’m less sure what’s going on there. That is, I’m sure it’s because Mizzou has their collective panties in a wad over being passed over in Big XII’s bowl bids last year, losing out on a sweeter bowl to the inferior Iowa State. Attention, Missouri: it’s because your fans are terrible and don’t travel well. Get on that. Anyway, what I’m unsure about is whether the Big Ten really wants them. I don't think they do. If they get Nebraska, they’ll call it a day.

OK, stage three: I once read an article that described the Big XII as a conference with two 800-lb gorillas, Nebraska in the north and texas in the south. Without Nebraska, the conference becomes unattractive to texas. That blow to the conference’s prestige makes it not good enough for what is, objectively, one of the nation’s finest athletic programs. But where to go? And here’s where it starts getting, in my opinion, kind of stupid.

With the Big Ten’s talk of expansion and the increasing likelihood that the Big XII will become a carcass for the picking-apart, the Pac-10 has gotten in on the "fun." It's already poached Colorado. That's not super-important; the Big XII could survive without Colorado, replacing with, I dunno, somebody. Colorado isn't a deal-breaker. Its leaving is a symptom of Big XII death, not a cause.

But the Pac-10 isn't done! Oh no. Why stop at Pac-11 or Pac-12 when you could be The Pac-16, Conference Supreme!? Why add a bunch of teams from Texas and Oklahoma to the Pacific Athletic Conference? WHY NOT.

Basically, the Pac-10's supervillain plan is to poach not just Colorado, but also texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech. Then the old Big XII teams would be put into an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State, while those Pac-10 teams that have any relation at all to the Pacific Ocean would be in the western division. This is baffling to me. Oklahoma State and Oregon State in the same conference? I just . . . it's . . . what? Sure, this conference (or "super conference" as ESPN's Mark May put it) would make a lot of cash--but then, they'll spend a lot of cash on travel expenses--but it just doesn't make the sense that the Big XII (or the existing Pac-10) does.

One interesting facet of this: Baylor. Baylor was lobbying to be in the new Pac-10 group instead of Colorado, but now of course, that ain't happ'nin'. And why would it? The Pac-10 wouldn't want to touch Baylor with a ten-foot pole. (Or, as it would need to be, a 2,100-mile-long pole.) Baylor shouldn't be in a major conference, and it's hard to see, in the likely event that the Big XII goes extinct, how it will be. The wild card is that Baylor alumni have political pull within the state of Texas, and they're using that leverage with the other Texas schools to try to stay together in a group. That's how they (and Texas Tech) got into the Big XII in the first place. I doubt if it will enough this time, though.

I wish the Big XII would just stay together (well, at this point, "stay together" with the remaining 11 members and some replacement for Colorado), but I think it won't. I shouldn't be this worried about it, because A&M is going to be fine. Even if we didn't have the understanding with texas, we've been flirting with the SEC for years, apparently (and Sports Illustrated has a very, very interesting article about the possibility), and that would be a pretty soft landing (although we'd be soft targets for SEC teams as the program stands now). But I don't wanna be a Pac-10 fan. And I was never a big K-State or KU fan, but I have a little affection in that direction, and I have no idea what would happen to them (or Iowa State or probably Missouri, but I don't care about those guys). Geographically and historically, I just don't know either who they'd join or what they could cobble together. Nothing springs to mind at all.

I don't blame the Big Ten for wanting to expand. I don't blame Nebraska for wanting to go. I don't blame texas and the Texettes for wanting to go if Nebraska goes. I guess I don't blame the Pac-10 for wanting to take over the world. So whom do I blame for all of this? That's easy. Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is a perfect fit for the Big Ten. There's no reason for Notre Dame to be independent except that it gives them more flexibility in their schedule to play terrible teams and inflate their win total. They bring in a little more money with their independent television contract than the Big Ten currently pays out to its member schools, but the Big Ten's total and Notre Dame's share would increase with Notre Dame in the mix. If Notre Dame would have just done the obvious thing and join a conference already, no dominoes would have had to fall anywhere. The Big Ten would get better and everybody else could have stayed the same. But no. Notre Dame is killing the Big XII, which gives me just one more reason to hate them.

If you'd like to follow along with the drama, I'd recommend the ESPN Big XII blogger's page.

Still More Books and Books: the Funny, Light, and Popular

2010-06-08T17:27:00.001-05:00

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
I lost count of how many people told me I needed to read The Help. "It's so good!" I heard, over and over and over. It's extremely popular at my library, so by the time I got on the hold list for it, I was 997th in line. Luckily, one of my co-workers had jumped on it much earlier, and let me read her copy once she was done with it. As it turns out, all those people who told me it's great were entirely correct. It's about black maids in the 60s and their complicated relationships with the white women and children they work for and again, it's super good. Go read it (if you can get your hands on it, that is.)

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter
Aaaand at the other end of the spectrum, there's this book about a cat. See, there was this library in Iowa in the 80s and times were bad, but the librarian found this cat who was really friendly and everyone in town really loved him and zzzzzzzzzzzzz. I read up to a little less than halfway through (it is, somehow, a 277-page book) and then gave up, so I can't tell you how he "touched the world." He sounds like a perfectly good cat, but . . . he was just a cat.

Committed: Confessions of a Fantasy Football Junkie, by Mark St. Amant
Speaking of writing a whole book about something there isn't all that much to say about, there's this one about some random dude's fantasy football season. I actually finished this one, despite the fact that the dude has a writing style that is both repetitive and derivative of Bill Simmons' (and since the guy is, like Simmons, from Boston, I refuse to believe that's a coincidence). It gave me some food for thought on what I'll try to do with my fantasy football team this upcoming season, though, and I guess that's good enough.

Silent in the Grave, by Deanna Raybourn
This was a MacKenzie recommendation, and I liked it. I know this is lazy, but now I'm going to copy-and-paste the review I wrote on Goodreads: This book is good enough that I want to read the next one in the series, but not good enough that I want to read the next one immediately. On the con side, Raybourn revisits a lot of Sherlock Holmesian cliches in her Nicholas Brisbane (but then, how can you write a male Victorian detective without ripping off Sherlock Holmes?) and I knew who the murderer was from, like, the scene where the-person-who-would-ultimately-revealed-as-the-murderer was introduced. Oh, and I didn't find the romantic stuff at all convincing. On the pro side, it's brisk, funny, and likable. Pretty good, I say.

The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, by Dan Savage
As you know, I like Dan Savage, and as you also know, I am very pro-gay marriage. It is therefore unsurprising that I really enjoyed this book, which mixed the autobiographical tale of how Dan and his partner Terry decided whether to get married (one of the big factors: pressure to get married by Dan's mom) with Dan's cogent, common-sense arguments in favor of the legalization of gay marriage. It's very good (although I probably liked The Kid better).

Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
I saw the movie based on this book--in the theater, no less. I liked it, and I like Neil Gaiman (mostly because he co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett), so I plucked Stardust off the shelf at work on a whim. The first half is really good, better than the movie (because, as novels do, it gets to explain and explore more than a 90-minute film). But then the second half gets kind of weird--not weird in an obvious way (because it was already weird, what with witches and ships flying through clouds, an alternate reality, etc.) but in a structural way. The pace, instead of accelerating as it does in almost any other book, slows down--there are a few sequences of "and then a few weeks passed." (Now, here are some vague spoilers, so stop reading if you don't want the broad strokes of how the book ends.) And then there's no climax. It's a book with a hero, a damsel in distress, and a very evil villain, but the hero and villain never face off! The villain is just like, "I guess I failed. Welp, whaddaya gonna do?" And then the very end is sort of sad. The second half is, therefore, inferior to the movie (and shows why the screenwriter pretty much made up new stuff for the second half of the film). Now: I know some people would like this sort of convention-defying structure, but it didn't fly with me. Why am I going to all the work of reading the darn thing if there's no payoff? But then, on the other hand, I read it in like three hours, so "all the work" is overstating it by quite a bit.

In conclusion, I don't disrecommend it.

Still More Books and Books: the Serious, Classy, and Classic

2010-06-07T13:00:00.006-05:00

I've gone so long since the last books and books entry that putting all the books I've read into one would make it really long. That's why I'm semi-arbitrarily splitting them into serious/classy/classic vs. funny/light/popular. (I know some of these are popular, but hey, some of the next batch are serious.) Part 2 will go up tomorrow.

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
It's true, I had never read Little Women before. I knew the general outlines of what happens, though, since I am an adult human. There were a couple of surprises, though. First, I was taken aback that the book is incredibly preachy and moralizing and yet still enjoyable. Second, I had no idea how long the book was. It is so long, you guys. Sweet merciful heavens. For the most part, I did enjoy it, except that I couldn't stand Meg's stupid babies. They're so annoying. There's one chapter that announced up front that it was going to tell all about Meg's stupid babies, and I was like, "I'm out" and skipped to the next one. Other than that, though, it was good.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
This was the last Austen book I hadn't read. I have mixed feelings about it--the funny parts were, I thought, funnier than in other Austen books, but it was also largely pointless. I also hated the guy the heroine ends up with; he wasn't any less repugnant than the villains. Overall, I think liked it better than Persuasion and Mansfield Park, but I'm sure I liked it less than Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, by Alan Sillitoe
Neal taught his own class about British history last semester, and I decided to read both the novels he assigned to his chilluns. This was the first one I tackled--an important work about disillusionment in post-war Britain. It's the kind of book you're glad you read, to get the perspective and because it's a well-respected piece of literature. It wasn't particularly fun to read (although it has its humorous moments).

Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker
Neal also assigned the first book of the Regeneration Trilogy, which is about World War I. I liked these better than Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, although again, it's not the kind of book I'd want to take to the beach, or on an airplane. These are, as Neal described them, very "literate" books. They're smart books that make you feel smart for reading them. The characters are interesting, and there's a nice mix of obviously sympathetic characters and ostensibly unsympathetic ones that gradually win you over. Also, they remind you that WWI was really horrible and stupid. And that's an important lesson.

Zeitoun, by David Eggers
This is the true account of one New Orleans family's experiences immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina. The wife left with the children while the husband stayed to look after their properties--at first, he was in a position to help the other people who stayed, but then he got arrested and imprisoned without so much as the chance to make a phone call. (It did not help that he is of Middle Eastern descent.) It's a story that shows how human nature can be both surprisingly generous/selfless and shockingly petty and cruel in times of hardship. I'm not sure whether I liked it as a book or not. There were parts that were tedious, but I certainly wasn't going to put it down until I found out what happened to the Zeitouns in the end.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
If you read The Kite Runner and liked it even a little, you should read this one too. If you haven't read The Kite Runner, read this anyway. The main thing I liked about The Kite Runner was that it taught me things about life in Afghanistan. A Thousand Splendid Suns is still educational in this way, although definitely less so, but it's more enjoyable as a novel. That's mostly because the protagonists of this one are likeable. It is well worth the read.

Tea Birthday

2010-06-06T12:01:00.005-05:00

For my birthday (over a month ago), my sister got me a really cool present: lots and lots of tea.

About a week before my birthday, I got an email informing me she had gotten me a $25 Twinings online gift certificate. $25! That's a lot of tea!

For the sake of posterity, I shall now record what I ordered:
2 boxes of delicious, delicious Lemon Twist
2 boxes of family favorite (Neal and I both drink it) Prince of Wales
1 box of Blackcurrant Breeze (since it was new to me, I'll report: Kind of weird. It sort of tastes like somebody dropped a bunch of tart fruit-flavored candy in the tea. It's not bad, but I don't think it will earn a permanent place on my tea roster, either.)
1 box of Pure White tea (also new: I had been curious about this one for awhile, but didn't spring for it until I got a gift certificate because it's almost a dollar more expensive [that is, almost 30% more expensive] than the other teas. I think I'll keep buying it, though, because I really like it. Or I think I really like it? Maybe I'm just fooled into thinking it's great because it costs more? For the record, it's khaki-colored instead of white--until you add milk, and then it is pretty darn white.)
1 box of decaffeinated Lady Grey (another experiment: I think this stuff is great. [For decaf.] It tastes almost exactly like Lady Grey; it doesn't have the weird tinge to it that decaf English Breakfast [which tastes disconcertingly yeasty] or decaf Earl Grey [the store brand that I buy--for some reason, I strongly dislike Twinings' Earl Grey] have. And I like Lady Grey better to begin with than the Rooibos, so this one has taken the top spot among decaffeinated teas. Good job, decaf Lady Grey!)
1 box of regular Lady Grey, for old times' sake.

A few days later, my tea arrived--but oh, what's this? Two boxes from Twinings on my doorstep?

It turns out that not only did my sister give me the present of shopping for tea, she also bought me more tea.

I received this, the Twinings Tea Trolley, which both came with more boxes of tea and, once I dumped the packets out of their boxes, gave me a place to store much of the ridiculous amount of tea I now possessed. Score! My cabinet shelf o' tea is a much better place for it.

Now, as a post-script: sometimes I forget to comment back to comments people leave. So I'm going to respond to months-old comments on old tea entries right here, right now.

I did finally try some Chai tea. The problem is that it tastes like the holiday season, so it's weird in the springtime. I think I'll really dig it once late October rolls around, though.

Also, Hannah, your under-brewing suggestion about fruit tea made a huge difference. My instinct had been to steep as long as possible to intensify the flavor, but once you pointed it out, I realized that that washed out the fruitiness. Now I set a timer when I'm steeping fruit tea, just to make sure I don't wander off and forget it.

MacKenzie: how did brewing your own tea go? Have you started on "mommy teas" yet?

Friends: Season Nine

2010-06-05T15:30:00.003-05:00

In general:
This season is so lazy. The acting, the plots, the dialogue: lazy, lazy, lazy. Even the clip show is lazy for a clip show. For the most part, characters just go through the motions of plots, and the jokes are weak and predictable. There's an occasional funny line or a flash of impressive continuity (Joey's favorite beach activity is digging a hole, Joey's "Southern" accent is actually Jamaican), but that just makes all the nonsensical stuff even more frustrating by comparison.

One little silver lining is that Chandler is (to some degree) back. Sure, his snarky comments may have lame, implausible set-ups, but he gets to make those comments on topics other than his own patheticness. So that's . . . something.

Little things that drive me crazy:
The material they gave Elliot Gould in the season opener (farting, accidentally spying on his own daughter having sex, being too enthusiastic about her sex life when he finds out they're trying to have a baby, and just lots of stupid lines) was just awful.

An example of lazy writing: Joey's girlfriend Charlie overhears Rachel telling Phoebe that she's jealous because she has a crush on Joey. Charlie later tells Rachel that she overheard, but she thinks it was Phoebe saying that she had a thing for Joey. But why would Charlie think that? There are context clues in the conversation Charlie overheard about who was who--Rachel even addresses Phoebe by name at one point. The writers could have taken the hints out or, even better, put in something misleading that would plausibly cause Charlie's confusion. They just didn't bother.

Another: Phoebe is gushing about how attracted she is to David. Monica, disbelievingly, says, "The scientist guy? Really?" Phoebe responds, "Chandler? Really?" That was a little amusing--the first time they used it (verbatim), in Season Seven (in "The One with All the Cheesecakes").

"The One with Rachel's Other Sister" is bogged down by the cartoonish, entirely unbelievable hatefulness of Christina Applegate's Amy, and it doesn't have anything else going for it either.

One plotline in "The One with Rachel's Phone Number" involves Mike and Ross hanging out and discovering they have nothing to talk about. Attention, all writers of anything ever: watching people being awkwardly bored is awkward and boring.

Joey's nervousness about getting a big, romantic storyline on Days of Our Lives is nonsense. Joey's been an actor for almost 20 years and he's never played "in love" before? Please.

The gag where Joey doesn't know what air quotes mean is dumb. First of all, everybody knows what they mean. Second of all, because of point #1, Joey has of course used air quotes in previous episodes.

I loathe the character Gavin. It's written badly and acted execrably. I'll admit, I haven't seen enough things Dermot Mulroney is in to know if he's a complete and utter no-talent hack, or if he merely put no effort into this one role.

Big things that drive me crazy:
None of the Ross and Rachel "romantic" stuff that happens this season makes sense. Ross totally drops his plans to try to date again because Rachel, in a moment of panic that she immediately regretted, said yes to Joey's (non-) proposal? Why? They both freak out when Rachel gives out her phone number to some random dude? Why? Ross is infuriated when Rachel kisses her co-worker? And then gets "revenge" by pretending to be dating some loser woman? Why? Phoebe keeps insisting (in "The One with the Blind Dates") that Rachel and Ross should be together because they're "so good together"? Good gravy, Phoebe, WHY?

Mike really loves Phoebe, but, not to over-use the question . . . why? All we really see of Mike is that he's a nice guy. I wish there was something weird and interesting about him that showed us he's a good match for Phoebe.

Even worse is the Phoebe-Mike-David love triangle introduced in the second half of the season. Before this season, David had only appeared twice, but his first episode in particular was really memorable and good. Over the course of the series, Phoebe dates a lot of guys, but rarely seriously--she loved David, and he was for her The One That Got Away. It was therefore a good decision to bring him back in the ninth season to provide contrast with Phoebe's new great love, Mike. The show creates a lot of believable conflict/drama with Phoebe's feelings for Mike conflicting with her feelings for David, and then it just poops all over it in the season finale. David, being pathetic and lame, decided to propose to Phoebe too soon and Phoebe, being weird and dumb, decides she'll accept even though she loves Mike more than David (but doesn't the fact that Phoebe and David both want to rush into a bad decision show their compatibility? I think so). Then when Mike shows up at the last minute to declare his love, Phoebe declares her love back and Monica and Chandler celebrate that they've gotten back together and everyone will be happy again forever. Except oh, wait! David's standing right there as all of this goes down. So thanks, show, for bringing back a beloved character just to thoroughly humiliate him for no apparent reason.

Little thing that I don't know how to feel about:
When Ross gets all hyped up on maple candy, Schwimmer's acting is not entirely different from an Emo Phillips impression.

Little things I love:
Joey wondering what "Ross" is short for. You know, Rossell? Rosstopher?

The "It's [NOT] a Boy!" banner they hang up for Rachel. (The store was all out of "It's a Girl!")

I agree with Ross: "Baby Got Back" does promote healthy body image.

Big thing I love:
One thing that Friends did well over and over is break-ups. (OK, aside from the Phoebe and David one I just complained about.) Monica and Richard broke up because she wanted to have kids, and he didn't. Her perspective made sense; his perspective made sense; it was an irreconcilable difference. Ross and Rachel became increasingly frustrated with each other because her career changed the dynamics of the relationship--he got ever-more annoyed because of jealousy of her co-worker and jealousy of time spent away from him; she got annoyed by his annoyance. The relationship became more and more fraught until it ruptured. Chandler breaks up with Janice (well, one of the times Chandler breaks up with Janice) because she still has feelings for the father of her child, and Chandler--because he loves her--wants her family to stay together if there's a chance it will work.

Season Nine has another realistic breakup, that of Phoebe and Mike. Phoebe realizes, because she's so happy with Mike, that she wants a traditional relationship, one that will lead to marriage and kids and driving a sensible car. But it turns out that Mike, who got burned bad by his first marriage (we never learn which of his possessions his ex-wife defecated on . . . but still) won't consider getting married again. Phoebe's already opened Pandora's wedding box, though, and decides that if Mike won't marry her, she needs to be with somebody else who will. Again: this is a believable situation that you could easily imagine happening to one of your real-life friends, so it resonates pretty well when it happens to one of the Friends.

Lines:

Joey: "You don't have a TV? What's all your furniture pointed at?"
Chandler, to Monica: "You know how competitive you get, and while I say it's cute, others disagree and I'm lying!"
Chandler, upon being ignored: "Should I use my invisibility to fight crime, or for evil?"
Phoebe, in her Katherine Hepburn voice: "Here's something rich--thirteen bathrooms in this place; I threw up in the coat closet!"
Ross: "If she's never had a serious relationship, do you think I'd go around broadcasting it, like some kind of . . . unstoppable moron?"
Chandler: "You're smiling." Joey: "No I'm not." Chandler: "Yes, you are. I can tell by the way your mouth is."

Let's talk about Rachel:
Rachel is the hardest Friend to characterize in a nutshell. You know how when there's a group of four girls/women, they dole out who's the Carrie, Miranda, etc.? Well, when you try to do the same with the Friends characters in a group of three, it tends to go (in my experience), "Well, I'm obviously a Monica, and you're clearly a Phoebe and I guess that makes you, [third person], the Rachel. You, um, date guys sometimes."

Because what is there to say about Rachel? You assume she's sort of, for lack of a better term, boy-crazy, but it's not like she dates any more than Monica (when Monica's single, of course), and she dates less than Phoebe. She seems like sort of a daddy's girl, except when her terrifying daddy actually shows up. She starts out spoiled, but she grows out of that. She's sort of shallow, but on the other hand she dated Ross, a nerd who, as Homer Simpson pointed out, "is handsome in an ugly sort of way." She likes to shop, but . . . well yeah, she definitely likes to shop.

Two big things happen with Rachel this season, both of which reflect her malleability as a character. First, she becomes a mom. That makes sense as a character progression; parenthood is a very common aspect of continuing to grow up. The problem is that show can't decide what kind of mom she is. In "The One with Phoebe's Birthday Dinner" she, if you will, pitches a spaz about leaving Emma with Ross's mom for the evening, believing something terrible will happen if she, Rachel, isn't with Emma at every moment. In "The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work," she cuts her maternity leave short, before she and Ross have made arrangements for Emma's care, because she imagines that her job is threatened. Now, I know moms get more relaxed the older their babies get, but the second thing is her just plain old being a bad mom.

Rachel's other big storyline is her crush on Joey. This plot pales in comparison to Season Eight's Joey-falls-in-love-with-Rachel arc. For one thing, it's not nearly as sympathetic because, as Rachel tells anyone who will listen, her thing for Joey is just physical. As a corollary, the situation doesn't reveal anything new about Rachel. When Joey fell for her, it showed us a new side of his character. It wasn't inconsistent with who we already knew Joey to be, but it did give him new depth. Rachel wanting Joey just shows old self-centered, jealous, shallow Rachel. (They really did go to the jealousy well with her a lot.) Not terribly interesting. The only way it does affect her character is that the writers dumbed her down to make her seem to fit better with Joey. (During Ross's keynote speech, Rachel laughs at "homo" while Joey laughs at "erectus." Boom! Now I'm convinced they're perfect for each other!)

And you know what's weird? I don't even dislike Rachel (except maybe when she ditches her baby to engage in stilted "sexual tension" banter with that puke Gavin). I like her fine. It's just . . . I can't really tell you why.

(For those keeping track at home, we've now "talked about" Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Janice, Ross & Rachel, and Chandler & Monica. I'm excited about this feature in the Season Ten write-up. [As a hint, it's not Joey & Chandler. That got cut in favor of Chandler & Monica.)

Top three episodes (by default):
"The One with Ross's Inappropriate Song"
or: "The One Where Phoebe Meets Mike's Parents" or: "The One with Richard's Sex Tape"

"The One with the Blind Dates"
or: "The One Where Monica and Chandler Babysit Emma"

"The One with the Soap Opera Party"
or: "The One Where Chandler Goes to a One-Woman Play"

Greetings!

2010-06-02T10:05:00.003-05:00

Wow, May was a terrible, terrible blogging month for me (tied with December 2008 for worst-ever!). So I'm going to try to do better this month. For my first recuperation post, let's take care of some business. There are things you need to know.

1. CraKenzie had their baby, CraKenzie, jr! (Lucy.)

Look at that sweetie muffin!

2. My friend Nancy started a blog about making fancy cocktails (now appearing in the blog-links sidebar). I haven't tried any yet, because they've all involved fancy tools that I do not possess. (Then again, I don't even own a blender, so there you go.)

3. Maybe I don't have a #3? But here are some entries I plan to hit you with real soon: Friends Season 9, a books & books, some sort of beta of the princess quiz, a tea report, and an account of a Madison adventure we had. Let's see if these plans come to fruition!

Keeping Up With My Correspondence

2010-05-08T11:09:00.004-05:00

Dear landlady,

Hey gee thanks for turning off the furnace, that was really practical. After all, in Wisconsin there are never times in May where the weather doesn't get above 50 degrees as a high and then gets down below freezing at night and then snows or anything.

Oh wait.

Regards,
Rachel

* * * * * * * *

Dear landlady,

So, while I was writing my previous missive, you came over and turned the furnace back on. So, um, actual thanks this time.

Sincerely,
Rachel

* * * * * * * *

Dear older men at the library who pretend jokingly pretend I'm flirting with you when I'm just being friendly,

Please don't.

Sincerely,
Rachel

* * * * * * * *

Dear man at the library who referred to your library fines as a "debt to society" and then took it too far by asking where the spankings are given,

Don't.

Sincerely,
Rachel

* * * * * * * *

Dear man at the library who felt the need to let me know that a women with words on her shirt draws his attention to the shirt-covered area,

Do. Not.

Sincerely,
Rachel

* * * * * * * *

Dear Spider Solitaire,

I'm so glad you're on my new computer. And, again, sorry that I had to delete you off my old computer for being too distracting, and also the computer before that. But now that I don't have to write papers anymore, who cares if you're distracting? I missed you so much. Let's never fight again!

Love,
Rachel

Editor's note: After posting this entry, the author immediately lost three consecutive games of Spider Solitaire.

Editor's note note: Make that four.

Books and Books, Some More

2010-05-01T11:12:00.000-05:00

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, by Alison Weir
Pardon me while I go all history-snob for a moment: Weir spends most of the introduction to this book explaining how there are barely any scraps of historical evidence about the life of Katherine Swynford. No letters, no objects, barely any mention by contemporary chroniclers. On the bright side--some places where she lived are still around (in varying states of decay)! That's a pretty good sign that there just isn't that much she can say about Katherine Swynford. (The parts about her various homes and places she might have visited were, by the way, parts I skipped.) I am therefore ambivalent about this book. Alison Weir is, no question, my favorite history author, and she does a good job with what she has, which is A) the broader context in which Katherine lived and B) . . . not much else. I liked learning more about John of Gaunt (Katherine's lover and later, husband) and what was going on in the later reign of Edward III and the reign of Richard II, but I just couldn't help but roll my eyes when Weir milked the teeny little compliment one chronicler paid to Katherine (in passing) for the third time. Weir's overarching argument isn't that great, either; it's basically "Katherine is really really important because a lot of really really important people were descended from her." Frankly, of all the contributions to history a person can make, "being an ancestor" is one of the least impressive. Props to Katherine, I suppose, for being swell enough for John of Gaunt to marry her and legitimize the children they'd already had (making it more possible for those children and their descendants to rise to high positions), but that still doesn't mean she did much of importance. To put my reading experience a nutshell: I made it through the whole book, but I'm still not convinced it needed to be written.

The Secret Life of Bees by someone, I'm sure
Well, ok, I'm not going to claim I "read" this. I got to, like, page five, where there's a flashback to when the little girl protagonist was four years old and (in unconvincing circumstances) shot her mother (I would have put a spoiler alert, but this was seriously by about page five) and that's when I was like, "Nah." If any of you have read it and it turns out I'm wrong and that it's actually great, you can let me know (but I'll be a little surprised if you do).

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer
I love this book. (The title made me think it was going to be one of those books about sassy middle-aged ladies who like to talk about sassy middle-aged things, but it is not.) I love the characters, I love the plot, I love that I got to learn more about how the Germans invaded and occupied English territory in World War II, which I only learned about like two months ago, because nobody ever talks about it. It's crazy. I liked this book so much that it didn't even bother me that it's an epistolary novel (even though I was dismayed when I first started the book--"Oh man, it's all letters?!). It's great; go read it.

Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
That's right, I finally read Freakonomics! It did not disappoint. Not all of its chapters are created equal--the stuff about crack dealers, for instance, is much better and more convincing than the stuff about baby names--but it's well worth the read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
This one is interesting because it's written from the perspective of an extremely autistic teenager; it's believable because Haddon (as the about-the-author informs us) spent years working with autistic teens. Even if I hadn't read that on the back cover flap, I'd still feel like this gave a pretty accurate picture of what it would be like inside an autistic mind--it just feels authentic. This isn't one of the all-time great books I've ever read, but it is unique, and I recommend it.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
This is a quirky little book about a quirky little girl in a quirky little family in quirky little England. It starts out promisingly but unfortunately gets dumber and dumber as it goes along. It's a mystery, and it turns out that Alan Bradley is no good at writing mysteries. Either the clues are thuddingly obvious and you have to wait for a couple of chapters for the protagonist to put together what you already know, or the protagonist finds something out and applies really stupid logic to come up with some off-the-wall conclusion that turns out to be correct. Also, the protagonist, a precocious 11-year-old girl, is alternately preternaturally brilliant and crushingly stupid, depending on narrative convenience. (One more minor complaint: Bradley doesn't necessarily write convincing British people. When one minor character popped up with a stereotypically English bumpkin accent when nobody else around spoke at all similarly, it occurred to me to wonder if the author was even British. And it turns out he's Canadian. I'm not saying that a non-English person can't write about England, but if I asked the question in the first place, he probably wasn't doing a good job.) The second book in this series just came out, but I'd need to be paid a small to moderate sum to read it.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
After I finished this book, I read a couple reviews on Goodreads complaining that the story was too melodramatic and hackneyed. I thought about this, realized it was kind of true--the main characters are practically perfect, the villains are super evil, and the events that happen to them are extremely dramatic. I also realized I didn't care. I didn't notice any of it myself, so none of it pulled me out of the story. The book is about an old man in the present day thinking back to the time about 1930 that he worked with a seedy little circus. It's about two-thirds circus flashbacks and one-third sad old man in a nursing home (but an interesting sad old man in a nursing home). I'm not going to give away the ending, because I recommend reading this one, but I have to tell you I got a kick out of it. It certainly isn't a perfect book (the way that the author wraps up the stories of the main character's circus friends leaves a lot to be desired), but I really enjoyed it.

Princes: the Prizes and the Putzes

2010-04-28T18:14:00.019-05:00

I decided to rank the dudes the Disney Princesses end up with because . . . I like ranking things. (Also: I decided to leave John Smith off the list because he and Pocahontas don't end up together. I could have included John Rolfe, whom Pocahontas married in real life and who appears in the direct-to-DVD Pocahontas sequel, but direct-to-DVD movies don't count. In any way, for anything.)

Eighth place:
Prince Charming #2 (Cinderella)
As I have noted before, this guy is entirely devoid of personality. And if does have any character trait at all, it's laziness. He apparently doesn't do anything besides hunting, he resents having to stay up late to meet the ladies his dad rounded up for him, and then when he finds Cindy's glass slipper (which he wouldn't have had to rely on if he'd run fast enough to catch up to a woman in full evening wear) he doesn't even go out and do the shoe try-ons himself! What a schmuck.

Seventh place:
Prince Ex-Beast (Beauty and the Beast)
Is there any bigger letdown than when Belle's love finally breaks the spell, and the Beast gets all levitate-y and shoots like, lasers out of his appendages and then . . . he's some be-pony-tailed wimp? The think the crux of the problem is Robbie Benson's voice. You get used to the electronically-deepened tough voice of the Beast (which goes along with the Beast's dominating presence and physical power). The wimpy little voice accentuates that most of the other stuff that made the Beast cool is just gone. Plus there's all the buildup. You wait the whole movie for him to turn into some cool prince and then you get that guy.

Sigh.

Even when I was eight, I thought that guy was a bummer.

Sixth place:
Prince Phillip (Sleeping Beauty)
Well, he's got a personality and I guess fights a dragon and whatnot, but when he first meets Sleeping Beauty/Aurora/Briar Rose/Whatever, she keeps trying to move away from him because hey, he's a stranger and she's all alone and undefended, while he keeps grabbing her by the wrists, pulling her back toward him. And I find that offensive. And creepy. Also, it's a terrible movie.

Fifth place:
Prince Charming #1 (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
We don't see much of this guy, but he seems pretty nice. Should maybe go a little easier on the lipstick, though.

Fourth place:
Prince Naveen (The Princess and the Frog)
As I mentioned, Naveen is (surprisingly) pretty funny. He'd also be pretty fun to have around--that guy is a party unto himself (until Tiana marries him and turns him into a hard-working busboy. Wait, why did he marry her?). He also has the capacity to be brave and self-sacrificing. That being said, he's kind of a moron. And by "kind of a moron," I mean that he's a moron. A dummy. He's not the sharpest crayon in the box. There's nothing in his head but hair. (Wait, why did she marry him?) He'd have placed lower but . . . he's pretty good-lookin'.

Third place:
Li Shang (Mulan, also, not a prince, but what are you gonna do?)
This guy has the whole tough/vulnerable contradiction going on, and that's pretty attractive. To wit: he's all strong and fit and hard-nosed and implacable in battle, but also he's eager to live up to his beloved father's expectations and, when he realizes he loves Mulan, gets all shy and awkward about telling her. Awwww.

Second place:
Aladdin (Aladdin)
Aladdin has an unfair advantage because the movie is about him, not Jasmine. Since we know him so well, we get what he's going through, where he's coming from, etc. Sure, he's technically a criminal and he carries on an elaborate long-term lie about being a prince, but he has a heart of gold! And he's a diamond in the rough! He only lies because of a powerful cocktail of love and insecurity! After all, he's clever and funny and caring, and Jasmine (as she knows from meeting a lot of uppity morons) could do a lot worse.

First place:
Prince Eric (The Little Mermaid)
Yep, this guy practically has it all. Clean-cut, yet roguishly handsome; high-born, yet most comfortable with working-class people. Dances a mean hornpipe; is a dog-lover if you're into that sort of thing. The worst thing you can say about him is that he gets confused about who he's in love with from time to time, but be fair--that one time he had just had a near-death experience. And that other time there was magic. In conclusion, he murders the villain with a boat. With a boat! That's pretty awesome.

The Princess and the Frog

2010-04-26T13:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I finally watched Disney's calculated strategy for merchandising princesses to little black girls, The Princess and the Frog.

OK, that was pretty cynical, but listen: I'm happy for little black girls that they get to have a princess to identify with more (hey, I identified with Belle more than I did any blonde princesses) and can pester their parents to buy them the associated princess merchandise with as much enthusiasm as anybody else. Also, if looking to increase the profit margin on princess merchandise was what it took to get Disney to animate something by hand again, so be it. The question is, was it any good?

The answer is both yes and no. Let's start with no: there are quite a few moments that reek of cold calculation. At some points, you can practically hear the writers thinking, "What other 'Disney-ey' things can we put into this movie?" There's an animal who wants to be human, just like in The Jungle Book. There are animals who accidentally kiss when trying to eat, like in Lady and the Tramp. (Although the frog version here is much grosser and dumber.)

And most of all, worst of all, there are the songs. This film does not have the soul of a musical. Instead of really building toward the songs, making the songs the high points of film, it feels like it makes room for some songs because it knows there are supposed to be some. (In this case, the writers are thinking, "Oh, we can fit one in here, can't we? Probably better fit on in here.") It doesn't help that they're not very good. The heroine (Tiana) has one big musical number toward the beginning--her theme song, if you will--and it's all right. But the only one I genuinely enjoyed was the villain's crazy evil voodoo entrapment-of-the-hero hootenanny. The rest were either irritating, cyncially by-the-numbers, or both. (Example: Our Heroes find themselves a good voodoo lady, and there is of course a big musical number with dancing Busby-Berkeley-esque flamingos and whatnot. Again, they were clearly trying as hard as possible to do something "Disney-ey.")

Finally, exactly when, how, and why did the male and female leads fall in love? I cannot answer those questions. Such information was not provided by the film.

Now for the movie's yeses. It looks beautiful. Sure, all-computer animation is cool and everything, but after awhile you just start to miss things that are lovely and hand-drawn.* To be sure, computer animation is art, but animation that at least starts with hand-drawn pictures is . . . well, it's an artier art. The two songs that were not lousy looked especially good; Tiana's song is very stylized and cool and the villain's song is vibrantly creepy.

I also, to my surprise, liked many of the characters. I thought the villain was pretty cool and creepy, although I was pre-disposed to like him because Keith David did his voice. (Gargoyles forever, man!)

Wait, out of context, this picture looks kind of . . . romantic? I promise, in the movie, the prince and the villain do not start making out.

Tiana is sympathetic and relatable (and best of all, has a distinctive enough character that she'll fit beautifully into my princess quiz. And come on, the quiz is the real reason I watched the movie anyway). I enjoyed Tiana's best friend--if my calculations are correct, the first non-animal best friend a Disney princess has ever had (Tiana also has a living mom, which is almost as unprecedented)--who's flighty and shallow and pretty over-the-top . . . but in a good way? I dunno; she's funny. I like her dad, too, but mostly because he's John Goodman. John Goodman is Goodtimes.

The biggest surprise was that I really liked the frog/prince. The movie's trailer and the cheesy accent had prepared me for some unbearable "comic" relief from that character, but he's genuinely funny. Part of it is the writing, which is a little on and offbeat in a good way, and part of it is the voice actor's line readings, which are occassionally hilarious. (Characters on the "no" side include the evil lackey, mostly because his character design is just the evil butler from The Aristocats** in the body of Mr. Smee from Peter Pan;

It's simple math; it must be true.

the alligator who plays the trumpet because . . what?; the Cajun hick semi-toothless firefly because it's really just too much; and the briefly seen Cajun hick frog-hunters because they're creepy, especially the aptly named "Two Fingers." Also, as you may have picked up on, this movie is unflattering to Cajuns.)

Overall, I'd say this movie had more good than bad; it was OK in the least perjorative sense. I wouldn't want to buy it or anything, but if it's a movie that my someday-future kids wanted to watch over and over, I probably won't have to fight the urge to hurl the DVD player into the street.

That's higher praise than it probably sounds like.

*Huge tangent: the place where I do not miss hand animation is television. I've got Animaniacs on DVD, and while the writing and voice acting are still sharp, the animation is just awful, to the point of distraction. And it wasn't an outlier. Children's cartoons in the 90s were, as a group, really ugly and sloppy. Nowadays, even the most cheaply made animation, because it's done by computer, at least looks nice and neat. Consider WordGirl! (I love Word Girl.) It's on PBS, so you know the budget can't be much, but the animation, while simplistic, looks good. Something else to consider: The Simpsons. When you see a re-run, you know that if it looks bad, it will be a good episode (because it's from the earlier seasons [exception: if it looks really bad, it's from the first or second season, and those are not good]); if it looks good, it will be a bad episode (because it's from a more recent season). I miss the writing The Simpsons used to have, but it's hard to pine for sloppy hand-animation.

**The Aristocats is a terrible, awful, horrible movie. I couldn't mention it without reminding everyone of that.

ETA: I just remembered! Tiana's not the first Disney princess to have a friend. Pocahontas also has a friend, although I don't remember her name. I'm pretty sure she was boring. But then, since she's a character in Pocahontas, that's a given.

Books and Books, Succinctly

2010-04-19T23:32:00.007-05:00

Love the One You're With, by Emily Giffin
Bland.

Shogun, by James Clavell
Longest book in the history of literature; no climactic battle; still pretty good.

The Spellmans Strike Again, by Lisa Lutz
Not nearly as funny as the first three, but I'm still sad it seems like it's the last one of the series.

Warriors: Into the Wild, by "Erin Hunter"
As good as you could expect for a company-written YA rip-off of Watership Down (except with cats).

(I checked this one out because all the pre-teen girls who come to my library read these things by the dozen. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.)

And in other book- and blog-related news, I've started using the website Goodreads (on ashpags' recommendation--thanks, ashpags!) to keep track of what I've read and get ideas for new books to read. And just today, I added a widget! (Over there on the right, under "blog archive.") Widgets are fun! (And so is Goodreads--you should join, too!)

Things I Found When Cleaning Out My Office Supplies Box

2010-04-19T21:09:00.003-05:00

4 half-used rolls of Scotch Gift Wrap Tape

2 less-than-half-used rolls of double-stick tape

ninja star

2 lighters

5,000 pens (approximate)

miscellaneous nails

sunglasses (crooked)

empty envelope box

17 envelopes (from a purchase unrelated to the empty envelope box)

miscellaneous pushpins

paperclip box (contents: one paperclip)

egg-shaped device that tells time, has alarm clock function, gives current temperature (broken)

8 39-cent stamps (quilt-themed)

2 tiny bulldog clips

2 bottles of yellow acrylic paint (dried out)

bouncy ball

This, That, Miscellany, Etc.

2010-04-18T10:44:00.002-05:00

1. I had a checkup at the doctor the other day (and by "at the doctor" I mean "at the place where doctors are, but really I saw a nurse practitioner, which is just as good, because I just like nurse practitioners for some reason") and one of the questions I asked her was about vitamins. Specifically, my friends have told me that I ought to be taking grown-up vitamins, so are they correct? The answer is no, I can take Flintstone vitamins if I darn well please. And I do! (Make fun if you will, but here's the thing: I've given them a couple different shots, but I have gotten an upset stomach on 100% of the days I've taken vitamins aimed at adult women. That's just a fact.) So now I'm getting all of the folic acid I need as a Woman of Childbearing Age, but I'm getting it in tasty chewable form! Score one for Rachel.

1.5. Another vitamin note: my NP also told me that there are new recommendations for Vitamin D (because it turns out that people who live closer to the equator and therefore get more sunlight have lots less of most common terrible diseases). All multivitamins still have the old recommended amount, which is 400 International Units of D, but the new thinking is that you should get between 1000 and 2000 IU a day. (That's so much more! Also, I asked her how much you get from, say, a glass of milk, and it's only 50. So much for my "I drink so much milk, I've probably got everything covered" plan.) So! Even if you're taking a multivitamin, maybe you should also be taking a Vitamin D supplement. I know I am. (By the way, if this is all super-old news to you, I apologize. I'm just trying to help. You know I'm just looking out for you.)

2. All the cool kids at my work bring environmentally-, budgetarily-friendly metal canteens for their water. (You know what they say: library circulation desk work is thirsty work.) So I bought one, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't get over the metal taste; fortunately, Neal really likes the canteen for both work and home use, so it was still a few bucks well spent. However! I still needed some alternative to buying Gatorade every day (if I'm going to buy a bottle of something, it is not going to be water! Water is free!) besides taking a travel mug of tea, rinsing it out once the tea is gone, and filling it with drinking fountain water. It's getting too warm for tea every day. I therefore decided to give canteens another shot, this time purchasing a super-girly pink-with-flowered-pattern one to differentiate it from Neal's. What I did not realize was that Girl Canteen came with a lid with a little spout in it--now I can drink from plastic instead of straight from metal! That makes all the difference. Now I can be cool too!

3. I really sympathized with this post MacKenzie wrote because I know all too well the woes of being Bad at Plants. I can't even tell you how many plants I've killed. (I still mourn you, little cilantro plant from last summer. Poor little guy.) Yet I want to be Good at Plants (one day, when I've got a house with a yard, I want to have a garden in which I grow all the ingredients for salsa. That's going to be the most delicious garden ever). I keep hoping, and I keep trying. My latest effort is a little azalea that I bought at the grocery store. And here's the good news: it's been in my care for almost two weeks, and it's still alive! It's not even droopy! I think these are the keys: 1) I only let myself buy the azalea because the little plastic information spike said it shouldn't get too much sunlight. My apartment has barely any sunlight, which I still think is the reason my poor little cilantro plant died. But the azalea must be a good fit. 2) I solicited advice from one of my plant-growing coworkers, and she suggested watering it from the bottom up. So I've been setting the azalea in a bowl of water every other day, and that keeps the soil fairly moist (which the spike also advocated). I'll let you know if I continue to keep the azalea alive, and I'll try to overcome laziness enough to take and upload a picture of it, because it's purdy.

I Think Too Hard about Commercials

2010-04-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you've seen this Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco commercial for Reebok 8,000 times.

If you're still like me, you have no idea how any of it makes sense, much less all put together. Here are some of my questions about it:

1. Reebok thinks Chad "Ochocinco" Ochocinco is a good investment as a pitchman?

2. Why would they pick a visual scheme that looks evil but then depict big silly cartoonish things with it?

3. Does the whole creepy-red-lines-against-a-background-of-infinite-inky-blackness remind anybody else of this hilariously old-fashioned Strong Bad video game?

4. Why, WHY, does he throw that giant hamburger? Giant hamburger?!?!

5. That song is for children, right? Doesn't it sound like a particularly high-quality Vacation Bible School song?

6. What are the words to the song, anyway? I can't understand them. (Are they, indeed, about Jesus?)

7. What does "the energy drink for your feet" mean? I mean . . . energy drinks . . . you drink them, and you get energy for your body . . . and your feet are part of your body . . . right? Aren't energy drinks the energy drinks for your feet?

8. Is that the ugliest shoe ever created, or just the ugliest shoe created in the last twenty years (because you never know when it comes to the 80s)?

Anyway.

I want to talk about another commercial that, very unfortunately, I can't find online. I'm counting on you to have seen it already, approximately 8,000 times. (The NCAA tournament had a frustratingly small pool of commercials, didn't it?)

It's a McDonald's commercial. There are two guys sitting in a booth at McDonald's; Guy #2 asks Guy #1 if he's heard that Sully (presumably a co-worked of theirs) has won Salesman of the Year. Guy #1 is clearly not that happy about the development, and (presumably jealously) scoffs that "that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee." (Guy #2 seems to share, though to a lesser extent, the mild disgruntlement about Sully's success.) Guy #1 then gets distracted and starts listing all the great things that a dollar will get you at McDonald's. At the end of the commercial, Guy #3 comes up to the booth and cheerily asks if they've heard about Sully. Guy #1, brought back to his irritation, repeats "Have you heard about Sully?" in a mocking voice. End scene.

Here's what I think: this commercial is about racial tension in the workplace.

Guys 1 and 2, who aren't happy about Sully's success, are black. We never see Sully, but if his last name is Sullivan, we can probably assume he's of Irish descent. Guy #3 is definitely white, and when Guy #1 mocks him, he uses a super-nasal, making-fun-of-how-white-people-talk voice. Is there any other conclusion to reach here?

I just think it's interesting--and weird--to overlay a commercial about all the wonderful products you can purchase for a dollar at McDonald's! with this little vignette about a black man (complaining to his black work-friend) resenting the success of a white man (who has a white work-friend). Why would the commercial people do that? What is the point? Why do I always type "commerical" the first time through?

Thoughts?

Hey, Listen to This Song.

2010-04-13T18:30:00.002-05:00

One day at the library, I was looking for something else and stumbled across the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego soundtrack. How great is my job, right?! I finally got around to listening to it today and I tell you what--it isn't good. No indeed. So I was very surprised when BAM! out of nowhere, there was a song on it that actually made me cry:

If you stop listening before the weird bagpipe part kicks in, it's really good.

Yet More Books and Books

2010-04-10T11:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, I haven't been blogging very well/much, so here's a big ol' book entry! It helped that I took a trip to visit my family in Kansas, so there was bus time and airport time and airplane time in which to read. (I read two and half books on the trip back alone.) This batch has fewer recommendations and more dis-recommendations than previous incarnations; my book luck was pretty bad there for a week or so before it turned around. Anyway:

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
You may have heard of this from that Russell Crowe movie, although it's actually based on a later book in the series. I wasn't aware of it, but the series that Master and Commander begins is well known (and extensive. If I'd liked the first one more, it could have kept me busy for quite awhile). On the one hand, I enjoyed the way he wrote the characters. They were distinctive and engaging. On the other hand, there's just so much boat. I don't care about mizzens and prizes and whatnot. I just don't. I stopped reading maybe 2/3 of the way through, because my caring about the characters was finally overwhelmed by my not-caring about the boat.

My Life in France by Julia Child
Like most everyone else, I preferred the Julia Child parts of Julie and Julia, and since this is the book they were drawn from, I assumed I'd enjoy it, too. I was partially right. It's an extremely good-natured book; Julia Child's cheerfulness radiates from the page. However, it's also kind of boring. She loves France! She loves to cook! She loves her friends! After awhile, I had the feeling of "I get it already" and so I turned it back in to the library when I was about halfway through. Pleasant, but not super interesting.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
And here's another book that I didn't finish. I was intrigued because it had sort of a Harry-Potter-for-grownups feel. Magic exists in a world otherwise like our own; people are British. But it's over 1,000 pages long, and it takes its sweet time getting to anything good. I stuck it out long enough for a few cool magical things to finally happen, but I bailed out when I got annoyed that many of the magical events were of the people-experience-them-but-then-immediately-forget-about-them variety. (The device where a character has an adventure but then for some reason has to forget the adventure is one of my pet peeves, up there with "It was all a dream!") I was also annoyed that I had gotten a few hundred pages in and Jonathan Strange had barely been introduced yet. If he's in the title, why do I have to wait so long to meet him?!

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (followed by Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Beautiful Girls, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, The Full Cupboard of Life, In the Company of Cheeful Ladies, and Blue Shoes and Happiness) by Alexander McCall Smith
These books are about a lady detective who lives in Botswana. (Because "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is a mouthful, I refer to them as "African lady detective" books, which is slightly less of a mouthful.) As my co-worker Nancie put it, they're very nice books. Niceness abounds. These are not books you can sink your teeth into; they're snack books. The first one is a little weightier, because it gets to give the lead character's backstory, but from there on out, each one just has a little bit of incident and not much character development, and if you were to ask me to describe what happened in each of the ones I've read, I'd probably fail. But when I want to read something that will reliably be pretty good and, you know, nice, I'll go back to these. (McCall Smith is ridiculously prolific--I've still got two African lady detective books to go, and he has two or three other series as well as some stand-alones. It's crazy.) One final note about these--Mma Ramotswe (the titular lady detective) is always drinking "bush tea," which is rooibos tea, so I often make myself a cup of rooibos when I settle in to read one of these.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
I liked The Time Traveler's Wife very much, so it was given that I was going to read this. Like The Time Traveler's Wife, it sucks you in and reads really fast. The downside of that is that I was halfway through before I realized most of the characters were stupid. (Really stupid.) I was two-thirds through before I realized that the book itself was stupid. (Really stupid!) And since I'd gone that far, I felt obligated to finish. And it kept getting stupider. But I guess if you like way-too-cutesy twins (who sleep in the same bed and hold hands in public even though they're in their twenties), blindingly obvious plot twists (multiple), and pointless OCD subplots (although to be fair, Pointless OCD Guy was my favorite character), then you'd probably like this book better than I did.

The Greatest Knight: The Story of William Marshal by Elizabeth Chadwick
This was pretty good. I like that Elizabeth Chadwick likes William Marshal in sort of the same way I like Henry VII--it's a "Hey, this guy was totally awesome--why doesn't anybody else care?!" (And, admittedly, it's probably much easier to argue for William Marshal's awesomeness than Henry VII's.) However, I've started to realize that all of the books I've read by Ms. Chadwick start very strong but about halfway or two-thirds through, they feel like they start to meander. They begin to drag, I think, because she doesn't impose much of an overarching narrative structure onto the history. She'd rather tell a person's story, including all the best historical incidents, than force the story into an artificial beginning, middle, and end. While I think that is in some ways admirable, it also bogs me down when I read the books. I want to feel like the book is going somewhere; her books often feel like they're going somewhere, they get there, and then they keep going. Other than that, though, they're very good--vivid characters, exciting incidents, believable dialogue--all very strong.

Dead Until Dark (followed by Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, Dead as a Doonail, Definitely Dead, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, and Dead and Gone) a.k.a. "The Southern Vampire Novels," "Sookie books," and "Those Ones True Blood is Based On" by Charlaine Harris
I've asserted before that certain book series ate my life for a few days/weeks; it happened again with these. I decided to check out the first books, expecting a trashy/guilty-pleasure sort of read. I was therefore surprised when it turned out to be really funny, endearing, and totally engrossing. There is a certain trashiness to these books--there's a lot of violence and some really dirty stuff (not as much dirty stuff as I thought there would be, but pretty dirty when it happens), but it's sort of a charming trashiness. I also find the protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse, really relatable. Not that I date vampires or am telepathic (thank goodness--although if anything, with my overly-expressive face [it's a real problem] I have the opposite problem Sookie does in that other people can tell what I'm thinking), but I know what it's like to be from a small town/buy most of your clothes at Walmart/not know what it's like to ride in an airplane. I feel like Harris writes "small town" really well. Also hanging out with vampires. She writes that well, too. These books are great. I think I'm going to buy them on Amazon.

Tea Report

2010-03-25T09:46:00.002-05:00

I feel I should tell you about two things: how my last batch of Twinings internet tea went, and how my new batch is going.

Tea Report: First Shipment

In ascending order of awesomeness, here's how my first six boxes shook out:

6) China Oolong--I don't really care for it. I drink it sometimes because I bought it and I might as well, but I find it mostly bland and a little bitter. I'm sad its taste does not match the greatness of its name.

5) Ceylon Orange Pekoe--it turns out that I was mistaken and that this isn't orange-flavored tea, it's orange-colored tea. It, too, is a little bland, but I just add a little more honey than I do to other teas and it's a'ight.

4) African Rooibos--I started out not caring for this one (and unfortunately, I can't say how Twinings' rooibos compares to other rooiboses, as it's the only rooibos I've had), but it's grown on me. At first, it tasted like cinnamon with an aftertaste of medicine, but by about my third try the medicineyness went away and now it mostly tastes sweet. Still a little odd, but pretty good. (Oh, and I've been reading books about this African lady detective, and she drinks this tea, so I enjoy drinking it whilst I read the books. It's fun!)

3) English Afternoon--very good. I don't know what about it makes it afternoony, but I still like to drink it in the afternoon anyway, just for kicks.

2) Prince of Wales--so good! It tastes like the Platonic ideal of black tea. It's exactly how tea should taste. It's just so tea-like!

1) Lemon Twist--now, the Prince of Wales is probably "better" than Lemon Twist; I imagine that tea afficianados/snobs would sneer at pre-fruited tea (although I have nothing to base that on besides imagination). But I love it! Once you put the honey in there, it tastes like Froot Loops! But not like, if you dumped Froot Loops in some tea--more like the essence of Froot Loops as interpreted through the medium of tea. I'm drinking some right now!

Intermission: A Japanese Twinings Commercial!

When I saw my sister (who's been living in Japan) recently, she indicated that she has some hostility toward the Twinings company because of their terrible commercials. Then yesterday, she sent me a link to demonstrate.

I don't know what the problem is. That was adorable!

Tea Report: Second Shipment

For the second go-round, I reordered the favorites (Lemon Twist, Prince of Wales, and English Afternoon; since I started out slow and Neal doesn't touch it, I haven't run out of rooibos yet), got my other favorite that I could buy at the grocery store but which is cheaper online (Darjeeling--mmm, Darjeeling) and took a gamble on two new teas.

I ordered a box of Orange Bliss based on the success of the Lemon Twist and my affinity for orange-flavored stuff. So far, I'm a little disappointed; it tastes like orange Kool-Aid, which is fine for Kool-Aid but not a flavor I crave in tea. Of course, when I say "so far," I mean the one cup of it I've had. I've discovered that it often takes three tries for me to nail down a solid opinion on a tea flavor, so this verdict may yet change.

This next one will not.

In my previous tea entry, I mentioned I had to get one additional box to come up with the minimum order total, and I had to decide between the Ceylon Orange Pekoe and the Lapsang Souchong. Since Orange Pekoe carried the day last time, I wanted to give the Lapsang Souchong a chance this time. Well, it turns out that when the company describes it as a "an adventurous tea with a unique smoke flavor," they ain't kidding around.

I opened the Lapsang Souchong box and was immediately hit by the smell. (Keep in mind, when I say I opened the box, I mean I opened a box full of sealed envelopes of tea bags.) Neal was sitting halfway across the room and he could smell it. Smoke flavor? Yes indeed. You get anywhere close to this stuff, and it's like walking into a barbeque restaurant, if the hints of sweet and tomato flavors were somehow erased. It's so gross. I dumped the bags out of the box so I could put them in a Ziploc bag. Then later, I realized I needed to put the Ziploc bag inside another Ziploc bag, because the smell was still leaking out.

I had to try some.

Neal was not particularly supportive ("I don't even want to know what it's going to smell like when hot water hits it!"), but I was determined. I boiled the water (not opening the envelope to free the tea bag until the last second, and when I did yes, there was an even greater wave of Smell) and then poured it into the mug with the tea (and yes, there was more Smell when hot water entered the equation). I steeped it for awhile, not because I wanted to intensify the flavor, but because I had to steel myself to taste it.

I tasted it.

The biggest question was, did it taste worse than it smelled, or about the same? I went back and forth. Neal did try it, although I don't remember him weighing in on that specific question, just confirming that it was real bad. First I drank a little straight, then I added milk (it dampened the taste a little, but the pre-smell as I bent to drink was as ripe as ever) then honey (a lot of honey--it just tasted the same, except also with honey). I dumped most of it out.

So here's the new question: what do I do with it?

The most obvious answer is, of course, throw it out. I'm a big believer in throwing things away if you're never going to use them. But there are alternatives. Um . . . I could keep it around to try to get people to drink it on a dare! And . . . no, that's the only one I can think of. But if any of you would like to try it, send me your address . . . although I'm not sure if the USPS would approve of me sending that substance through the mail.

RIP, One Shining Bracket

2010-03-20T19:01:00.004-05:00

Well, KU played terribly today and deserved to lose, but since they were my projected national champions, they took my bracket with them. There are two vague silver linings (for me personally, not for, like, the guys who actually play for KU--sorry, dudes): first, a whole lot of people also picked KU, so at least we're all in our unfortunate predictions together; second, there's a sort of freedom in not needing to worry about how my bracket is doing. I can now root for whatever the opposite of chalk (see def. 6) is qualm-free.

I can do this because A&M is an underdog from here on out; Tennessee will be except in the unlikely event that Georgia Tech beats the Ohio State University; I know I should root for Wisconsin over Cornell, but I just love me a scrappy 12 seed. Also, in a development that chapped my hide, Baylor ended up with a congenial route to the Elite Eight. I wanted them to lose to underdog Old Dominion today, and hope very much they'll lose to giant-killer St. Mary's next weekend. I really hate Baylor as far as men's basketball is concerned. I hate their coach, I hate their dirty fouling, and I hate their fans. (That's why I still enjoy this so much. Oh, and this one too. It was a clean screen!)

Oh, here's an upside to KU being upset by Northern Iowa specifically: more of this guy!

Mutton Chooooooopppppppppppps!

I feel like I should have more to mention, but I can't think of anything that would top mutton chops.

Madness!

2010-03-19T01:39:00.004-05:00

Even though I barely followed college basketball this year, I'm still very excited about The Tournament and, of course, my bracket.

I love brackets.

I filled one out on ESPN.com, and so far I'm doing worse than President Obama, but better than LeBron James. (The thing I'm proudest of, though, is what I named my entry: "One Shining Bracket." Oh, it makes me chuckle every time I think of it. Tee hee!) In case you're wondering, I have KU as my national champion, beating Kentucky in the title game (I couldn't resist the symmetry of KU vs UK); my other final four members are K-State (because I like the idea of KU playing K-State in the semifinal) and Duke (because I've read multiple people who have sports opinions for a living snarking about how the selection committee handed Duke the South region on a silver platter). For now, here's my Day 1 report:

The worst thing that happened to my bracket
Vandy losing. I had Vanderbilt in my Elite Eight, so it's a real blow that they lost to Murray State. I don't know if I had heard of Murray State before today. March Madness is so educational! (Tied to for second-worst-thing-to-happen-to-my-bracket are the losses by Notre Dame and Georgetown, both of which I had in my Sweet Sixteen.)

My best pick of the day
Well, the only real upset I picked today was UTEP over Butler, which failed to come true, but I did pick both of the 9s over the 8s (Northern Iowa over UNLV and Wake Forest over texas), which are each little upsets and pretty OK if you lump them both together. Right?

Best pick I made based on spite
I only picked texas to lose to Wake Forest because I wanted them to lose to Wake Forest. And hurrah that they did! (However, I could just as easily have picked them because Rick Barnes is not a good coach, because he is not a good coach.)

Pick I wish I had made based on spite
I don't like Notre Dame, so I wish I had followed my antipathy and predicted Old Dominion's win today. I cherish the hope that Old Dominion will continue to carry my spite torch and beat Baylor when they meet on Saturday.

My most cherished hope for tomorrow
is that the A&M/Utah State game (hot Aggie on Aggie action!) will be a very dull non-upset. I am so scared about being the 5 in a 5-12 matchup, I cannot even tell you.

My next-most cherished hopes for tomorrow, in descending order
Siena over Purdue (so that A&M, if they win--knock on wood, can play Siena instead of Purdue)
Cornell over Temple (because I also picked that as a 5-12 upset for good measure)
Vermont over Syracuse (because a 16-1 upset is the Holy Grail of Upsets)

The one basketball conversation I attempted to have at work today
Me: "So, do any of you follow the college basketball tournament?"
Everyone else: [silence]
Me: "Oh."
Me, airing what was on my mind anydangways: "They play this terrible song at the end of it every year, and it's already stuck in my head."
Co-worker: "I don't want to ask, do I?"
Me: "Well, even if I sang it, you wouldn't get the full effect of the cheesy 80s music."
Another co-worker: "Is it a different terrible song every year, or the same one?"
Me: "Oh, they've been using the same one for years. That's why it's terrible and from the 80s."

Morals of the story: 1) Libraries are staffed mostly by ladies, and ladies often do not care about sports (to the extent that they're blissfully unaware of "One Shining Moment") and 2) having "One Shining Moment" repeatedly stuck in my head is my comeuppance for "One Shining Bracket", and I don't know how I'm going to make it through the month, songs-stuck-in-my-head-wise.

Hey, Watch This Video.

2010-03-03T14:19:00.003-06:00

As the place where I saw it put it, this music video (by the band OK Go) features "the Rube Goldberg contraption to end all Rude Goldberg contraptions." (Indeed, there's so much stuff in it that it reminds me of Katamari.)

My favorite part is all the umbrellas.

My Staff Picks

2010-03-01T13:40:00.001-06:00

I mentioned how I got to contribute a list of staff recommendations, which will eventually contribute to a display at my work. (I based my list mostly on what I like but also on what my library system actually has available. That especially came into play in the DVD section.) Here's what I submitted:

Fiction
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

The Wagered Widow by Patricia Veryan*

The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick**

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte***

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett****

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Dune by Frank Herbert

Nonfiction
Dearest Friend by Lynne Whithey

The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Prisoner of Trebekistan by Bob Harris

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir*****

DVD
1776

Deadwood (1st season)

Friends (4th season)

Project Runway (4th season)

Pushing Daisies (1st season)******

. . . possibly something else, but this was the only section I didn't type up before I handed it in, so I'm relying on hazy memory. Also, there was a CD section, but since I keep up with music in no way, I just left it blank.

*The Wagered Widow is by no means my favorite Patricia Veryan book (The Mandarin of Mayfair, The Mistress of Willowvale, Sanguinet's Crown, The Dedicated Villain, Married Past Redemption, Feather Castles, and The Tyrant--roughly in that order--beat it out) but it's very good, available in multiple copies from my library system, and a standalone (most of her books are in series and no series-beginners were plentiful in the system).

**The Wild Hunt wasn't my favorite Elizabeth Chadwick either, but my first place (The Love Knot) isn't owned by any Madison city libraries.

***I didn't like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as much as I liked Jane Eyre, but I feel like it needs the attention more.

****I could have picked almost any Terry Pratchett book, but Soul Music seems like a good crowd-pleaser.

*****I only intended to put one Alison Weir book on the list, but I still had so much room over in the nonfiction column.

******Wow, I really don't watch many movies.

More Books and Books

2010-02-24T20:00:00.002-06:00

Here are some more books that I've read recently. End of enthralling introduction!

His Majesty's Dragon (followed by Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, Empire of Ivory, and Victory of Eagles) by Naomi Novik
My mom recommended these to me and I'm pretty crazy about them. I just don't know why not everybody understands how good they must be. I had this conversation more than once:
other person: "So are you reading anything good right now?"
me: "Well, I'm reading these books about the Napoleonic Wars . . . except there are dragons!"
other person: [puzzled stare]

I don't know why it always ended this way. There were the Napoleonic Wars, right? With Napoleon! Versus everyone! Mostly England. And these happen to be novels about those wars, except in an alternate reality in which there be dragons. The author is clearly a huge nerd, about both dragons and the Napoleonic Wars--and if you want something done right, have it done by a huge nerd. The best parts of the books are when Regency-era British manners collide with, well, dragons. Hilarity ensues. And then when military history collides with dragons, adventure ensues! These books are fantastic.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
I knew this book was incredibly popular, and I'd heard it was really funny. I was therefore disappointed to find out that it was really, really, really, really repetitive. It takes the text of Pride and Prejudice and intersperses it every few sentences with references to zombies and fighting zombies. What frustrated me was that he uses the same words to refer to zombies and fighting zombies over and over. (Mostly I got sick of him talking about Elizabeth and her sisters training in and using "the deadly arts." Five times a page it seemed like--"the deadly arts." "The deadly arts.") I read about fifty pages and gave up.

American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
This one was OK. Craig Ferguson is a funny guy, and this is a funny book, although more an "amused smile" than "laugh-out-loud" type of funny. It's also a quick read. On the con side, I wouldn't have cared at all if I didn't already know who Craig Ferguson is and like him quite a bit. Also, there are times when it seems like an exercise in mentioning all the friends he's ever had, just so all his friends can read the book and be glad that they're mentioned. Like I said, it was OK.

Persepolis 2 by Marjan Satrapi
I wrote in the last Books and Books about how, small time investment considered, Persepolis was good enough to justify reading it. The same is not true of Persepolis 2. The second volume shows the protagonist to be even more self-centered, common-sense-deprived, and unlikeable than the first, and neither the story nor the artwork are interesting enough to make up for that. A waste of time.

Three Cups of Tea "by" Greg Mortenson and by David Oliver Relin
I wanted to like this book. It's the story of a man, Greg Mortenson, who through sheer willpower started an organization that builds schools in particularly poverty-striken areas of Pakistan. Who doesn't root for that? Unfortunately, I thought the writing style of the book made it a total drag. (Note: although Mortenson is credited as the author, he in no way wrote this book. I don't understand why a biography has been packaged as an autobiography, but oh well.) For quite a bit of the book, I just felt like I was wading through unending word slurry, trying to fight through to get to the interesting parts. I did manage to finish it, but I had to make myself do it. I'm very happy to know who this guy is and all the good he's done, but I would much rather have read it in 15-page Vanity-Fair-article format.

Lois on the Loose by Lois Pryce
I work with a guy who's a motorcycle enthusiast, and he recommended this one. It's about an Englishwoman who quits her office job to travel by motorcycle from Anchorage, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, which I think we can all agree is hardcore. She's very funny, and it was nice to vicariously travel through so many countries in North and South America alone on the open road, because that's pretty much the opposite of anything I would ever, ever be willing to do. Well done, Lois.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
I saw the movie High Fidelity several years ago and didn't care for it. At all, really. (I'm only about half as mystified by the appeal of John Cusack as I am by that of Nicholas Cage, but that's still pretty darn mystified.) The book was easily better--it's set in England and therefore full of English people (and abrasive English people are easier to take than abrasive American people); and it's funnier (I remember laughing exactly once at the movie; I laughed a fair bit at the book). The biggest strike against the book is that it started to get a bit tedious near the end--there are only so many internal monologues about a guy's fundamental loser-ness that I need to read. But up until then, it was pretty all right. I doubt I'll read it again, but I'd be willing to read another book by the same author.

The Spellman Files (followed by Curse of the Spellmans and Revenge of the Spellmans) by Lisa Lutz
Along with those dragon books from the top of the page these are the other books on this list that I fell in love with. I read all three of them in about two and a half days, and my only regret is that there aren't dozens of them so I could still be reading them. Basic premise: there's this family of private detectives. They're wacky. Bonuses: the author frequently uses not only humorous lists (by the second book, she adds appendices just to store lists and more lists) but also humorous footnotes.

I LOVE HUMOROUS FOOTNOTES.

They're my single favorite literary device.

Oh, I'm still doing bonuses: there's a love interest in the Mr. Darcy mold. In fact, he's my favorite love interest in the Mr. Darcy mold of any of the books I've read and yes, I'm including Mr. Darcy. (Digression/confession: I've never really understood the appeal of Mr. Darcy. It's easy in the miniseries because he's Colin Firth and Colin Firth is Colin Firth. And it's great when he rescues Elizabeth's sister and therefore her whole family from disgrace, but up until then what's the appeal? Even Elizabeth doesn't like him until she visits his sweet house and is all, "Oh, I could get used to this." So . . . I don't get it.)

My feelings about Mr. Darcy aside, these books are hilarious. No, they're hilarious.If you like books and/or things that are funny, you should definitely read them.

The Six Boxes of Tea I Ordered from Twinings Today

2010-02-15T23:14:00.003-06:00

1. Lemon Twist (As the Tea of the Month, it's on sale.)

2. China Oolong (Oolong! OOlOng! Oooooooooooooo! Long!)

3. Prince of Wales ("[A] pure China black tea sourced from regions including the Yunnan province and other southern regions of China. This blend is light in color and has a smooth and mild taste, with a well-rounded character." Sounds delicious!)

4. African Rooibos (Pronouned "roy-boss." I make sure to roll the R, though, making it the second-most-fun to pronounce of the teas [Hint: Oolong].)

5. English Afternoon (I know I don't have to, but I'll probably make a point of drinking it between noon and 4 PM anyway.)

6. Ceylon Orange Pekoe (After English Afternoon, I still wasn't up to the minimum order amount. Despite my reservations about getting two fruit-themed teas, it beat out Lapsang Souchong--"an adventurous tea with a unique smoke flavor and a dark rich color"--because I'm not confident I'm adventurous enough for the Lapsang Souchong yet. Maybe if I really like the "flavor of smokiness" in the English Afternoon tea.)

Total price (including over $8 for UPS ground shipping): $25.41. I think even with shipping, that's less than I would have paid at the grocery store for my next six boxes of tea. (And the grocery store won't provide me with oolong, let alone rooibos.)

Tea!

2010-02-13T12:41:00.005-06:00

Ahoy there, fellows and fellettes!

I have not exactly been blogging up a storm recently; I realize that. I mostly blame my computer. It's got a virus, and I know I should just call up somebody at Microsoft and politely ask them to kill the virus, kill it dead, but I know from experience that said task is going to eat up a couple hours of my life and I've been putting it off. My computer time is thus curtailed to my 15-minute breaks at work (and I often like to use five of those minutes to go next door to Walgreens, where the candy bars live) and the unpredictable amounts of time that I can use Neal's computer when he isn't using it (and he needs it to do, you know, actual work). Overall, this has been good for me. I was spending way too much time reading the internet (there's always more to read!). Alas, the blog has suffered. So now, whilst Neal is reading a book, I will tell you about how much I love tea.

I realized I had been remiss in announcing my new love to the world when I talked to my mom this week and it was the first she'd heard of it. When your own mom doesn't know something integral about your life, you know you've messed up.

Perhaps "integral" sounds like I'm overstating things, but let me explain: I am not a coffee-drinker. If I wanted something warm to drink in the morning (or anytime), I had no recourse but to drink some hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is fine, and all, but A) you can't drink more than a mug or maybe two without starting to feel a little gross and B) you feel a little ridiculous ordering it at coffee shops and C) even when you do order it at a coffee shop, you can't be sure it's going to taste good at all--it might be bitter or, worse, it might clearly be a three-cent packet of powder that they dump into hot water and charge you like they did something fancy. Oh, and D) it doesn't give you the energy boost that coffee-drinkers get, rather just a little bit of a sugar rush.

Now let me make clear: I still don't like cold tea. Iced tea still tastes to me, as it always has, like water with a little dirt in it. Sweetening it only makes it grosser. What I like is hot black tea, with copious amounts of milk and honey. (I've tried green tea a couple times with poor results. There are enough kinds of green tea that I haven't written it off, but I'm a little wary.)

I'm a big fan of Twinings brand tea. I have my internet BFF, ashpags, to thank for this, because she mentioned Lady Grey and I had to go out and try it. I wasn't a big fan the first two times I tried it, and then all of a sudden I was crazy about it. (It's weird--this exact pattern has repeated itself for most of the teas I've tried. The third time really is a charm?) (Weirder: apparently I could be making Lady Grey cookies?) (Oh man, just looking at the Twinings website makes me all giddy about all the different teas I want to try. Oolong?! What a great name!! I want it!!!)

I think it's a big part of the appeal that I enjoy making, not just drinking, the tea. That's why I bought an electric kettle from Target.com the other day. I had tried boiling the water with a regular kettle, but it's a pain and takes a surprisingly long time. The microwave, of course, only takes a couple of minutes, but it heats up the cup along with the water, which is not entirely pleasant. I got the kettle last night (as I complained on Facebook, I didn't realize UPS had delivered the kettle until I looked up its status online. I guess the UPS man didn't feel like ringing the doorbell when he left it, a good eight hours earlier) and I'm a big, big fan. The directions on teabags always say to put the boiling water over the tea instead of immersing the tea in boiling water (as happens with the microwave). I was unconvinced it made any difference until I used the electric kettle, but the tea actually does taste and look better this way. Weird! I guess it's like in science class, where it's super-important whether you pour the acid into the water or the water into the acid (I no longer remember which is desirable--oops).

So (going back to the "integral" thing) now I drink tea a lot--I make some in a travel mug to take it to work in the mornings, I drink a couple big mugfuls on a Sunday morning to watch football pregame shows (no longer applicable until September or so, but I did really enjoy it), and I make decaf in the evenings when I'm cold and want something to drink while I read. (Also, I'm now dependent enough on the caffeine that if I go a day or two without it, I get a headache. I should feel weirded out by this, but instead it just makes me feel like I've got solidarity with all the other grownups, since it seems like most of them feel that way about coffee). In conclusion, good times. Good tea times.

Post Super Bowl Thoughts

2010-02-07T21:16:00.004-06:00

1. The main reason I'm posting this is to bump my very wrong prediction off the top the page. Oops on that one.

2. I know it's a cliche, but I think the Saints wanted it more. I also think the Colts were complacent, assuming they would win.

3. My vote is that the worst decision the Colts made was not trying to do anything at the end of the first half. They got it back with almost two minutes to go on their own one yard line, then ran it up the middle three times. Sure, the first time you should probably run, just to get out of your own end zone, but you have Peyton Manning, who's a two-minute-drill-type guy. They had to punt it away and New Orleans got it back in time to make a field goal. If they had just tried, the Colts really could have gotten a touchdown before halftime, and it would have been 17-3 instead of 10-6. Even 13-3 would have been a huge improvement.

4. My other vote is that the best decision the Saints made was the surprise onside kick to begin the second half. I thought it was interesting when the Saints won the coin toss at the beginning of the game and decided to receive the ball right away rather than to defer. After the onside kick, I became pretty sure that Sean Payton knew he was going to start the second half that way all along. The Saints were aggressive; the Colts were passive. And there you go.

5. After the first quarter, even when the Colts were leading, I never felt like they were winning. They just didn't have the momentum.

6. Drew Brees's baby is adorable.

edited to add:

Happy Super Bowl, Everyone!

2010-02-07T10:00:00.004-06:00

Yes, a Merry Super Bowl Day to you all! Let's gather 'round the glowing box and sing our favorite Super Bowl carols! And eat chips!

(My favorite Super Bowl chips are BBQ Pringles.)

Like last year, I'm going to make a pick and, I'm afraid, like last year I will choose the favorite. I hate to be so boring. It's just that the Colts are better.

I don't think it's impossible that the Saints will win. There are factors in their favor, I suppose. The Colts' best defensive guy, Dwight Freeney, is injured. He'll probably play, but he won't be at 100%. Then there's . . . um . . . lots of people want the Saints to win. Did you know that no New Orleans team has ever won a major championship of any kind, ever? It would be nice if they got that monkey of their back, let alone the Saints-specific being terrible for almost all of their 42-year history. And the Colts have other weaknesses--their run game is practically non-existent, and their coach probably isn't as good as the Saints' coach.

But the Colts are better. Drew Brees is good, but Peyton Manning is better. The Saints' receivers are good, but the Colts' are better. The Colts never lost a game they tried to win; the Saints did. The Colts have looked pretty darn good in both of their previous playoff games; the Saints haven't.

I like this Super Bowl matchup because I have no objections to either of these teams. They've both been very, very good, looking like Super Bowl contenders all season, and they both seem to be made up of a lot of decent dudes. (I'm still so happy every time I realize I don't have to listen to hours of Brett Favre praise in Super Bowl pre-game coverage, I could almost tear up.) So I'm not going to be disappointed unless it's a lame, lopsided game. Unfortunately, since the last two have been good, we're due for a snoozer. That plays into my pick of:

Colts 27, Saints 17

Friends: Season Eight

2010-02-05T15:05:00.007-06:00

In general:
This is the bounceback season. Whereas Season Seven was not as good as Season Six was not as good as Season Five, Eight actually improved on the one that preceded it. Adding a baby to rejuvenate a show is a hoary and deservedly much-mocked cliche, but in this case it worked. Rachel's pregnancy gave the show a real shot in the arm--it's not just that it allowed for Big Event episodes (like the season finale where she gives birth), but that it provided new material on a week-to-week basis. When you've already cranked out 170 episodes, that's an important contribution.

Now, it's not like this season is heyday-good. There are problems. Phoebe is nasty to the point where you have to start wondering, "Why on earth would they hang out with her?" (And oh, sweet heavens, the episode where she wants Ross to get her Sting tickets is bad. Not even "Rooooosssss can!" saves that garbage.) Monica repeatedly acts like she needs professional help. And medication. It seems like Chandler goes whole episodes without making any jokes that aren't about how pathetic/effeminate/even more pathetic he is.

Ross has his ups and downs. Which is good, because it's been a few seasons since Ross had any ups. Even though this season features at one occassion where Ross's actions should have been reported to the police (the episode where he breaks into his ex-girlfriend's apartment to try to get his pink shirt back), it also features moments of emotional honesty with him the likes of which we hadn't seen since the first season. He gets bothered that he's having another kid outside of a stable family situation--he should be bothered by that, so it's good that he is. He hates that he misses out on important pregnancy milestones and that he's not there fore Rachel when she needs help--and he should feel that way, so we appreciate that he does. Even though he has a long being-a-lousy-boyfriend arc while he dates Mona, the re-emergence of his caring, good-dad tendencies means this evens out to a pretty OK season for him.

Of course, the major revelation of this season is Joey. Joey could have depth?! Why yes. Yes he could.

Little things that drive me crazy:
When Phoebe has the hots for her sister's fiance/ex-fiance, Sean Penn. Not because of the sister angle, but because Sean Penn is really gross.

Rachel has a line in "The One with the Rumor" where she says that she and Ross dated for two years. No, they didn't. Their relationship was spread over two different seasons, but they broke up on their first anniversary. C'mon, writers.

A smaller continuity mistake: Monica claims (in the episode where Ross gives a key to his apartment to Mona, only to discover it was his only key) that Ross never gave her or anyone else a spare key. Then why did we see people get into his apartment when he wasn't there? Several times? (Just off the top of my head: when Rachel went over there to get margarita supplies and overheard a phone message from Emily; when Monica used his apartment as a second place to make Thanksgiving food and saw everybody else playing with Phoebe's contraband dog from Ross's window; and when Phoebe and Rachel snuck in to test Ross's unagi.)

What in the world is this costume?
That drives me crazy that whole episode.

Brad Pitt does an awful, AWFUL job in the Thanksgiving episode. Worst celebrity guest star ever? Discuss.

Little things that are reminders that this season started airing in the fall of 2001:
Messages like "I [heart] NY" and "FDNY" on the board on Joey's door

Different FDNY shirts on multiple cast members

An American flag shows up on Joey's wall; a huge one hangs on the back wall of Central Perk for a few episodes (and gets replaced by a big Uncle Sam painting)

Little thing that's weird:
There are two episodes in this season that I don't know what their names are because the DVD case and the DVD menu don't agree. Is it "The One Where Rachel Tells . . . " or "The One Where Rachel Tells Ross"? Is it "The One with the Creepy Holiday Card" or "The One with Ross's Step Forward"? How can it even be a question? I'm so confused.

Little things I love:
How it makes perfect sense that Rachel move in with Ross so they can share baby-related experiences and responsibilities . . . and it also makes perfect sense that Ross's girlfriend would find the situation ludicrous.

Phoebe's claim that she's a big fan of the Green Bay . . . Mermen.

Joey's ideas for Mona's Halloween costume: bikini model, slutty nurse, sexy cheerleader, Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre--no wait, slutty Leatherface.

Joey reassures Rachel that she's not bad with kids; they just get a little crazy on Halloween. And Christmas, and their birthdays, and during the summer, and any time they're hungry or sleepy.

Angry pregnant Rachel, who Ross supposes will give birth to a child that's half-human, half pure evil.

I feel like I should be driven crazy by how contrived Joey's not-really-a-proposal is (the ring Ross's mom has given him in hopes he'll give it to Rachel falls out of Ross's unattended jacket; Joey finds it, kneels down to pick it up, and turns to show it to Rachel; Rachel assumes he's proposing and says yes), but it's all set in motion so neatly that I actually like it quite a bit.

Lines:

Ross, congratulating Monica and Chandler on their wedding: "I'm so happy for you guys. And you are both so lucky! I mean, you both said the right names . . . and nobody was drunk . . . and nobody was gay . . . [starts to weep] And on your first try!"
Monica: "We're a team! We're in this together!" Chandler: "I fear a jury will see things the same way!"
Phoebe suggests baby names: "If it's a girl, Phoebe. If it's a boy, Phoebo."
Rachel's OB-GYN: "I know it's really not my place, but please don't name your child Phoebo."
Ross: "Joey hasn't had this much trouble getting out words since we saw him in Macbeth."
Chandler: "I'm not great at the advice. . . . Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"
Rachel, desperate to think of a work problem to discuss with Joey: "It's about my boss. . . . and my baby. . . . . My boss wants to buy my baby!"
Rachel, after Joey confronts her boss: "I'm gonna lose my job! What am I going to do?" Chandler: "You could sell your baby."

Let's talk about Joey:
I'm still surprised by how well the writers and actors accomplished the Joey Falls in Love with Rachel storyline. Matt LeBlanc is no great shakes as an actor; let's just all agree on that. And Joey often had little going for him as a character.

The writers could never seem to decide from season to season (or episode to episode) just how stupid Joey should be. There are times when they give him clever jokes or accomplish something fairly impressive (in the latter case, I'm mostly just thinking of the Season Five scene where he engineering a way for Chandler and Monica to kiss at midnight without giving away their Secret Love). But then there are the times when he doesn't know what fairly common words mean, or when he doesn't know what air quotes are. He ranges from "the dim side of average" to "Wait, shouldn't this guy be living in a group home of some sort?" Unfathomably Stupid Joey provides easy jokes. Ha ha, he ate something off the floor! Ha ha, Chandler had to teach him what an answering machine is! Ha ha, his friends call him an idiot to his face!

Clearly, Joey can be more than Stupid Slutty Guy. And the other side of the idiotic-manchild coin is that there's an innocence and sweetness to Joey that the other characters can't pull off. One thing I haven't figured out about Joey is whether it was coincidental or necessary that he fell in love with Rachel while she was pregnant. Would it have been plausible to us, the audience, for him to fall in love with her if she had just been in her normal circumstances? On the one hand, maybe they just happened to come up with the two plot ideas around the same time. On the other hand, it might be that Rachel's increased vulnerability (at least in Joey's eyes) helped to draw out protectiveness and more emotional involvement in Joey. And of course, Rachel being pregnant with Ross's child (and not just Ross's ex-girlfriend) increases the drama inherent in Joey's attraction, making the whole plot higher-stakes. I suppose my final assessment is that sure, they could have had Joey fall in love with a single, carefree Rachel, but it wouldn't have been nearly as sympathetic or engaging.

Without Season Eight of Friends, there never would have been a Joey. I know that doesn't sound like a compliment, but I do mean it as one. This season made Joey (and Matt LeBlanc) seem like he could carry the dramatic load of a series when need be, because he carried one of the best storylines in the later half of this series.

Top four episodes:
"The One with the Stripper"
or: "The One Where Rachel's Dad Finds Out"

"The One with the Birthing Video"
or: "The One Where Rachel Moves In" or: "The One Where Joey Breaks the Dog"

"The One Where Joey Tells Rachel"
or: "The One with Monica's Soulmate"

including the classic:
"The One Where Rachel Has a Baby"

Books and Books!

2010-02-03T11:38:00.004-06:00

Something very exciting happened at work this week: one of the librarians handed out sheets for everybody to make "Staff Picks," which will be displayed at my library this summer. I get to have an "expert" opinion!

I'm writing this post to serves three purposes. 1: get my thoughts in order about what I've read recently to brainstorm about what I want to staff-pick 2: review what I've read so those of you that are interested can investigate or steer clear (I talked to two of my friends on the phone last night and started to talk about books, but got distracted before I mentioned more than one) 3: solicit more book recommendations from you, in case there's something you think I need to read before I need to submit my picks at the end of this month. Let me know in the comments!

So here are the books I've read since roughly the beginning of 2010 (unless I'm forgetting something):

Laughing Gas by P. G. Wodehouse
Of course it's funny and involves English upper-class twits, because it's P. G. Wodehouse. It also makes fun of Hollywood and, oh, is a body-switching story (a la Freaky Friday, but not with ladies, because why would Wodehouse write from the perspective of ladies?). A light read; I liked it pretty well.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
This is one of those books where, once I started, I had to keep reading--I had to find out what was going to happen; yet I can't assert with confidence that I actually enjoyed it. It's certainly different from any other book I've read (although not mind-bogglingly so) and, at first, it's super-interesting. However, it steadily runs out of steam. The beginning is engrossing, but by the end, it's hard to tell what the point is anymore. And it just ends because it ends. Do I recommend it? 51% yes, 49% no. And definitely no if you don't like dark stuff because it is, after all, about a teenage girl who gets raped and murdered. So there's that.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I'm a little surer that I like this one. The protagonist isn't as likeable, and I felt that it went one last plot-twist too far near the end, but I also feel like I learned a lot about Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective. I'm glad I read it and might even read it again.

The Kid by Dan Savage
I don't think I've mentioned in this space how much I like Dan Savage, because I feel that many of my readers would not. He's a snarky, gay, sex-advice columnist. Some people read his columns because people with weird, kinky problems write to him (as opposed to, say, "Ann Landers"), but I like him because I think he gives really good advice. He's the only advice columnist I've read who will straight up tell people to dump their scumbag girl- or boyfriends, because sometimes that's clearly the right answer. ("Ann Landers" and Ann Landers, when she was alive, would frustrate me with their constant "try counseling!" Sometimes you should get counseling. Sometimes you should just dump the scumbag.) Anyway, Dan wrote a book many years ago about how he and his boyfriend adopted a baby. It's funny and interesting (I learned a lot about open adoption) and I enjoyed it--although I knew going in that I liked Dan Savage's writing, so it wasn't a big gamble for me.

The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons
I am perfectly indifferent to the NBA. No, that isn't true--I'm actually very slightly hostile toward it, and have never been a fan. But again, I already knew I liked the writing style of the author of this book, so I checked it out anyway. I made it through the first several chapters, before it got pretty technical, and even though I didn't have much of an NBA knowledge base, it still made me laugh. What can I say? Bill Simmons is funny.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
OK, I'm only including this for completeness' sake. I read a good review of it, and it's about Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII, so it's in my wheelhouse, and I therefore checked it out. If it weren't so new, it wouldn't be as in demand and I could re-check it and only then would I have been able to finish it. I had two weeks to work on it but didn't get around to reading more than the first couple of chapters; it's sort of interesting but not deeply so. The writing style is kind of original but also kind of confusing and . . . I dunno. I wanted to like it more than I did. Maybe I'll return to it someday.

Persepolis by Marjan Satrapi
This is a graphic novel that got turned into a movie, apparently. It's about a girl growing up in Iran in the late 70s and early 80s--that is, when crazy stuff started to go down. It reminded me of The Kite Runner in that it's an inside, personal perspective of a country I usually only see in outside, hostile, geo-political terms, so that was good. (The moral of the story is also the same: it's BAD NEWS when religious fundamentalists take over your country.) But it's definitely more simplistic than The Kite Runner (and the illustrations, while charming, are also simplistic--you basically have to tell characters apart based on context) and, since it's about a self-centered teenage girl, not always very sympathetic. Still, I think I'll seek out the sequel, because it was easily worth the investment of the short time it took to read.

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
I always meant to write up a review of the movie for this blog, since I saw it over Christmas break. But then, Christmas break was an uncongenial time for blogging, so there you go. I liked the movie more than I thought I would. Sandra Bullock was very sassy. And I heard that the book was better and had more hardcore football stuff in it. It turned out that both were true. This, too, was a super quick read and well worth the small time/effort it took. There are three or four chapters that focus on football history and strategy instead of the heartwarming rags-to-riches Michael Oher story, but if you aren't interested in the pure football parts, you could easily skip those chapters. I was surprised to find out the movie didn't really add any sappy parts--the sappy parts really happened in real life, changing them in my mind from "cheesy" to "genuinely touching." I really liked this book.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Now, this! This was a book, man! It's the first of a series (followed by A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows) and that series ate my life for a week or two. It's a fantasy series; it's a bit influenced by the Wars of the Roses (there are knights, dynastic struggles, crazy families, etc.) but there are also dragons and zombies. Dragons and zombies. The first installment is the best one, but once you're involved with characters, you can't stop. (I got Neal to start reading them and I think he'd agree.) There are two problems: first, by the fourth book I was starting to get kind of annoyed. Martin apparently started off claiming it was going to be a trilogy, but then he changed his mind to a seven-parter. But it seems by book four that he's just stretching things out to stretch them out. My second-favorite charcter (and I'm not going to go into specifics, in case anybody reading this takes my very emphatic recommendation and reads the books) just keeps having these ever-more pointless side-track adventures that, in some cases, just don't seem to fit her character at all. The second problem is that Martin hasn't gotten around to releasing the fifth book. There's a letter at the end of the fourth one saying that, hopefully, the next installment will be released the following year. The letter is dated July, 2005. So . . . I have little hope that I'll get to find out what happens to these characters I'm so invested in anytime in the foreseeable future. (He'll still have to write two more after #5!) But even with those concerns, I still wholeheartedly recommend these books. I love them.

And here's one final dis-recommendationn (I really thought I'd have more of those in this list--weird): The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry
I like Stephen Fry, but I got about 30 pages into this book before I put it back where I found it. It was aggressively obnoxious and mean-spirited. All thumbs down. All thumbs that exist.

Bad Names for Dogs

2010-01-28T20:50:00.002-06:00

Trevor

Kitty

Adverb

Banana Hammock

Table

Crack-Cocaine

Mr. Bitey

Two

General Poopington

Antidisestablishmentarianido

Mike Leach Mania!

2010-01-10T08:44:00.004-06:00

It's a guest post!

I asked Angela, a proud former Red Raider, to share with us her thoughts on the recent Mike Leach firing hoopla. The end of this piece is a smidge out-of-date: Angela learned just a half-hour after she sent it to me that Texas Tech actually succeeded in hiring Tommy Tuberville. That's a great hire. Therefore, it fills me with dread.

But enough about my feelings; here are Angela's. Thanks, Angela!

What do I think about the Mike Leach “scandal” that hit Texas Tech two weeks ago? Well, let’s just start this out by saying Mike Leach is crazy. He’s absolutely insane, probably difficult to get along with (or even understand), and he does not show much respect for anything outside of pirates, Geronimo, and football genius. He also had a winning season and a bowl game bid every year he coached at Tech, the highest graduation rate of any college football program, and he’s the main reason I began to like college football during my days as a member of the Goin’ Band from Raiderland. He’s been known as the mad scientist of football, and his offensive genius made for very exciting games. His eccentricity also made for very interesting interviews. He’s done the weather report for a local new station (raining mud is also one of my favorite Lubbock weather patterns), given tips on dating, and accused the football players of listening to their fat little girlfriends after the loss to A&M this season. You never know what you’re going to get with this guy!

Leach has stirred up trouble before. He was fined $10,000 for a rant he went on after the 2007 game against Texas about the dismal officiating during the game. Maybe this is what initially set off the university brass and made them hate the best football coach they’ll probably ever see at Tech. I’m not really sure, but Texas Tech is definitely not the place for a laid back and liberal coach. Although in my experience, Lubbock LOVED Mike Leach. He mentions his love of pirates, so we all dress up like pirates, the band does a pirate show, and you can see pirate flags all over town. As Rachel mentioned, the athletic director Myers and others at Tech have wanted him gone since contract negotiations last winter. It has since come out there were e-mails exchanged among these folks and some boosters. In an e-mail to Myers: “I feel you should sign a contract that does not cost us too much to fire him.” Obviously there were plans in place to get this guy fired before they paid him too much…like the $800,000 bonus he earned.

The university launched an investigation into James’ allegations on Dec. 20 and fired Leach 10 days later. Now I’m not sure how long investigations into this typically last, but 10 days seems a bit fast. Good thing they got it all finished up the day before they had to pay Leach $800,000 for doing his job and doing it well. And now this has been followed by Jim Leavitt getting fired by South Florida. This new firing comes after a month long investigation that still seems inconclusive to me, as the very kid Leavitt’s accused of grabbing by the throat doesn’t even feel that the coach did anything wrong: “People can say different things but he only grabbed my shoulder pads to motivate me, because he's a passionate guy.” Apparently passion is no longer welcomed by college football.

I will personally greatly miss the coach that brought Tech’s football program into the national spotlight briefly. And so will most Texas Tech fans. I was at the Alamo bowl last week, and amount of support for Leach was overwhelming. The guy selling “Team Leach” shirts with skull and crossbones on the front is now probably a very rich man. Apparently if you watched on ESPN, you would not have seen the many signs supporting Leach and telling James to get back in the closet, you would not have heard the many chants of “We Want Leach!!,” and you would not have heard the booing as James entered or exited the ramp. Thanks ESPN, for making it seem that Tech had done the right thing. Maybe Leach did something wrong, and maybe his team was unhappy with him, but maybe the university should have done a better job figuring this out first before firing him. It makes the university look bad, especially coming after these same people sought out Bobby Knight and hired him right up after all his documented instances of player abuse. And it makes Mike Leach look even worse. I mean, how can you expect this mumbling mad man who is indifferent to how the world sees him to keep his mouth shut and not say things that will make it even harder for him to find a good job after this? I hope he gets a job, and I will immediately begin to follow that team, no matter how low on the totem pole. And I hope this team plays Texas Tech, because if that happens, it will be the first time I root against Texas Tech and for Mike Leach. He deserved better than the treatment he received, and I look forward to him getting millions of dollars from Tech when the litigations are over. Oh, and Tech should hire Tommy Tuberville real fast before USF tries to get him. If that man wants to be your coach, you hire that man! Let’s see how badly Tech can screw this up as well- I predict fairly badly.

The Champeenship*

2010-01-07T12:25:00.004-06:00

As you may know, the BCS "National" "Title" Game is tonight. (I'm getting to the point where I feel like I should spit after saying "BCS." Like on Cake Wrecks, when she writes about "Cupcake Cakes (patooie!)" or when Craig Ferguson pretends to spit on the ground when he mentions a non-CBS network. Like that.)

I am both rooting for Alabama and fairly certain they will win.

As usual, I know many Aggies who will be rooting for texas. I have had it explained to me that many Texans tend to root for t.u. when they are playing somebody from out-of-state, or Texas Tech, or whatever, they root for t.u. whenever they aren't playing the Aggies. Here's what's weird about that: if you do that, you don't think of t.u. as your rival; they're your second-favorite team. But oh well, if that's Texas Logic, so be it. I am, however, under no obligation to feel that way.

A more compelling argument is Conference Pride! Shouldn't Aggies be stoked for a fellow Big Twelve school to win a national championship? That holds some water, especially when a Big Twelve team is playing an SEC team, because SEC people are all about conference pride. Should I root for texas against Alabama so they can prove the Big Twelve is just as good as the SEC? I guess so, maybe. But the Big Twelve isn't as good as the SEC, especially not this year.

I think the conference thing is more than outweighed by the recruiting angle--it hurts A&M even more in competition with recruits every time that other school in Austin wins a national championship. We really don't need that.

No matter who roots for them or doesn't, I don't see t.u. winning this game. Yes, Alabama had some near disasters against Tennessee and Auburn (although, in 'Bama's defense, Auburn played out of their minds in that game), but texas had trouble figuring out how to play a decent first half until midway through the season and looked real ugly against the best defenses they played, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Sure, Alabama looks ugly a lot of the time, but that's because they're good at ugly. Ugly is their wheelhouse. I think they're going to destroy Colt McCoy this evening, and I think they've got it in the bag.

*"Champeenship" as in "A wagon fulla pancakes? In the champeenship?"

It's a Carnival!

2010-01-04T12:12:00.001-06:00

A blog recap carnival, apparently.

I'm going to do a variation on what MacKenzie suggested I should do (well, not me specifically, but people who read her blog, and she knows I am one of them). Except instead of posting the first line from my first blog post of each month of 2009, I'm going to post the first line of the post I like best from each month of 2009. (Mostly because my first post from April was distressingly lame.)

Carnival time!

January: I found this out a while back from Television Without Pity , but I wasn't excited to write about it because it's a bummer.

That's from "Chronicling Me Some Narnia, Part 3" in which I explained that Disney was dumping Voyage of the Dawn Treader (and it must be official by now that nobody's picked it up; I haven't heard anything about it). Then I talked about the cinematic (and non-cinematic) qualities of the last five Narnia books. I really enjoyed everybody's comments on that one.

February: A few weeks ago, Neal and I were extremely excited to see that there was a Sonic being built in Middleton.

But not as excited as everyone else in the greater Madison area. We have managed to eat at Sonic a handful of times since I wrote that story, but not as often as I had expected, since it's on the other side of town.

March: Bobble Billy came into my life serendipitously--Nancy's sister acquired him at a basketball game (before I even started attending them), but she wasn't very hardcore in her Aggie basketball fandom, so she asked Nancy if she wanted him.

That's from "Where Are They Now?: Bobble Billy". Since I wrote it, Real Life Billy has indeed been fired from the University of Kentucky and, puzzlingly, hasn't found a different job. He has had a high-profile DUI arrest, though, so that's . . . something?

April: I impulse-bought a ruler today!

It was, as advertised, "A Fascinating Tale from my Daily Adventures." Man, I am so glad I finally got a job later that month.

May: Tonight is the season finale of The Big Bang Theory (on CBS at 7:00 in the best timezone), so today seemed as good a time as any to share my thoughts about the show.

I hope you guys don't mind that I fancy myself a TV critic and devote many, many entries to seriously analyzing dumb shows. I'd ask if you minded, but I probably couldn't bring myself to stop even if you said you did.

May also saw perhaps the greatest picture I've ever posted to this blog:

I still really need to make Spocktoberfest a real-life event.

June: One of the least disputable opinions about entertainment today is that Pixar is awesome.

Pixar is awesome.

July: I was inspired--inspired by a cartoon entitled "Dude Watchin' with the Brontës ."

Oh man, I still need to write a blog post about the book I read by The Third Brontë. And maybe another book by the Brontë I liked best (Charlotte), but I haven't read it yet, so we'll see.

August: I'm glad everybody seems to like my reports about things I (or my co-workers) find in library items.

I would have linked to the best list of weird things in library items, but the first line is pretty gross.

September: A couple of weeks ago, I ran into A Situation with my Netflix.

It's not that I'm actually that proud of "My Nefarious Netflix Plan," but September is one of those months that blog entries were thin on the ground. (And I'm a little proud of my nefariousness.)

October: This guy showed up my work yesterday.

I'm glad I didn't have to put up with life-size cardboard cutouts of Twilight characters at my library for very long.

November: For reasons that shall become clear later, I watched both Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty today.

The reason I was referring to was my planned princess quiz (which is no nearer to completion than it was the last time I brought it up). That blog post surprised me because I bashed on Sleeping Beauty pretty hard and nobody defended it. Maybe it's less popular than I thought?

December: According to your friend and mine, the National Weather Service, "A BLIZZARD WARNING IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 12:00AM CST THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10."

The blizzard itself wasn't too bad--snow days rule, after all. The only problem was that it took the City of Madison four or five days to get the roads clear. The City of Madison is incompetent.

2009 was pretty good. Maybe 2010 will be even better!

So Romantic!

2010-01-04T09:33:00.002-06:00

Is it immature of me to find this paragraph--from an ESPN story about the firing of the Washington Redskins' head coach and speculation about the hiring of their next coach--really funny?

It is no secret that Snyder admires Shanahan. The two men have known each other since the late 1990s, when they attended the same Pro Bowl, stayed in the same hotel in Hawaii, and wound up having dinner together one night. Since then, the two men have remained in contact and have had a friendly relationship.

I think it's the "wound up having dinner together one night" that sends it over the top for me.

(Side note: I just started following the author of the article, Adam Schefter, on Twitter, and it turns out he's, like, real smart about football. He makes me feel like I'm smarter about football just by reading his tweets.)

Friends: Season Seven

2010-01-02T19:00:00.003-06:00

In general:
Let's not beat around the bush: this season isn't good. It's not terrible, but it's not good. There are no episodes that are horrible to the point of being unwatchable, but virtually every episode has at least one storyline that's lazy, nonsensical, unpleasant, boring, or just bad. Sub-par writing is the biggest problem with this season, but sub-par acting intrudes as well--this was the season that Matthew Perry was grappling with his prescription drug problem, and it shows.

This season also starts to get gimmicky, although not all gimmicks are bad. There's an increase in the frequency of celebrity guest stars, but it must be said that Susan Sarandon and Kathleen Turner do marvelously, stuntcasting or no. (Even Jason Alexander does OK.) Meanwhile, story arcs are rather thin on the ground. Besides the big one of The Wedding approaching, all there is is Joey going back to Days of Our Lives (which doesn't get that much screen time) and Rachel wanting to date then dating her cute young assistant, Tag. That's it. Aside from the Tag imbroglio, nobody even dates much. (Phoebe dates some blond guy who shows up in two separate episodes and has roughly six lines, and that's about it.) A lot of things happen, but unless they're wedding-related, they're not related to anything else.

Oh, and Phoebe kisses Rachel. Remember when people made a big deal out of that?

Little things that drive me crazy:
It's so sweet when Ross buys Phoebe a bicycle because she never had one when she was a kid. But then he goes and ruins it by being a jerk and bullying her into riding it.

The whole "Rachel once kissed a girl (played by guest star Winona Ryder)!" plot is pretty annoying--Rachel keeps embarrassing herself trying to convince Phoebe that it really happened, even though Winona keeps denying it. But then at the end it turns out that Winona not only remembered it happening, but had secretly been in love with Rachel and yearning for Rachel to return her love for all the years since it happened. I guess I should applaud the show for doing something unexpected--since I bag on it when it's super predictable--but that's just sad. (And creepy.)

Rachel and Phoebe fight over a guy in "The One with Joey's New Brain," then two episodes later, they re-use the same device by having Ross and Joey fight over Gabrielle Union in "The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress."

In "The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin," Rachel and Phoebe don't realize that they're supposed to host a bridal shower for Monica, so they just haphazardly throw one together. They keep messing everything up, but at the end, it's Monica who ends up embarrassing herself in front of the whole party because of their screwups. Why does Monica get the karmic punishment for their mistakes?

Big things that drive me crazy:
You know the episode where Ross ends up massaging an old guy ("The One with Rachel's Book")? He ends up doing that because Phoebe was staying with him, and a massage client came by while she was out. Ross thought that the client was a hot young woman, and so claimed to be a masseur; it turned out she was just dropping off her dad. Here's my question: what if Ross had succeeded in his goal of giving the hot woman a massage? He would have convinced her to undress and allow him to touch her naked body under false pretenses. I bet a competent prosecutor could make a case against Ross in those circumstances and get him convicted of Class A misdemeanor sexual assault. My point is: this one is low, even for Ross.

I hate the A plot in "The One with the Nap Partners." Ross and Joey accidentally fall asleep on a couch together and after waking up, incredibly embarrassed, realize it was "the best nap ever." Joey then tries to lure Ross into napping with him again. Now, clearly, the napping is treated like a metaphor for sex. ("Ha ha! Isn't it hilarious that they're treating this like they slept together?!") But it doesn't make any sense. Napping? Really? It would be more believable if they were actually sexually experimenting with each other. I'm just sayin'.

Ross makes a move on his cousin. C'mon, dude, that's sick. (Why is Ross so terrible?)

Pray indulge me while I break down a weak episode:
Again, it's not that seventh season episodes make me want to gouge my eyes out with a fork or anything, but they too often tend toward the lazy, the cartoonish, and the contrived. For my money, the worst episode of the season is "The One with the Cheesecakes."

Here's what happens: Chandler accidentally eats a cheesecake that was meant to be shipped to one of his neighbors; he and Rachel enjoy the cheesecake so much that they end up stealing another one from the same neighbor; the cheesecakes eventually turn them against each other as they fight over who gets to eat more. Joey and Phoebe have a standing friend-date, but when Joey cancels on her for a real date, Phoebe reads him the riot act; then when her long lost love David the Scientist Guy comes to town for one day, she decides she can't cancel on Joey and instead tries to rush through dinner with him to meet up with David later; when Joey finds out, he tries to thwart her. Monica has not been invited to her cousin's wedding, even though Ross has; she is furious and decides to go as Ross's date so she can rub it in her cousin's face that she's there; it turns out that she wasn't invited because she once slept with her cousin's new husband.

Each of those plots is problematic. The Chandler/Rachel plot is completely wrong for those characters. What about the nature of either Chandler or Rachel would make them care so much about some cheesecake that they'll rob some old lady? The writers clearly just wanted to pair those two characters and couldn't think of an organic way to do it. If it was Monica and Joey (who both, in their own ways, love food), it would make sense; as it is, it does not.

The Phoebe/Joey plot reeks of contrivance at every turn. We've never heard of these special Phoebe-Joey times (to the show's credit, neither have any of the other characters); it doesn't really make sense that Phoebe would be that mad at Joey in the first place; and why wouldn't Phoebe just explain to Joey that the love of her life was in town for one night only? (Also problematic: that David didn't try to find her earlier in his trip. Again, the show tries to explain that away, but it's inadequate.) None of the actions taken in that plot resemble the actions that real people would take.

Finally, there are two different problems with the Monica plot: first of all, there is no slight grievous enough to justify trying to ruin a bride's wedding day. Monica's decision to try to wreck--again--HER COUSIN'S WEDDING DAY--is unpardonable. Above and beyond Normal Monica Craziness. Secondly, and I actually find this more offensive, the upshot of the plot (that Monica had slept with the groom) would have been so much funnier if they had used anybody we'd ever seen on the show. We can only tell that it's an ex-boyfriend of Monica's by her reaction, but it would be far more comedically satisfying if, say, it was Fun Bobby who turned around to bring home the reason Monica hadn't been invited.

While this is the only individual episode this season this riddled with problems, the same sorts of thing happen repeatedly throughout the season. So it isn't a total disaster, but it is a bit of a mess.

Little things I love:
The dynamic between Joey and Cecilia Monroe, the soap opera actress played by Susan Sarandon, is actually very sweet. (He respects and admires--as opposed to objectifies/lusts after--her, and she doesn't tell him he's an idiot like his friends so often do [especially this season, it seems like]; she just appreciates his good intentions and rolls with it when he says something a little dumb.) They're surprisingly good together.

Rachel's short haircut is really cute. (I can't get my hair to do that--I've tried.)

The contest between Rachel and Phoebe over who gets to be Monica's maid of honor.

This:
{removed, perhaps someday to return: video of Joey's explanation of "moo point."}

The game where you try to list all 50 states in six minutes.

That Joey lists 56 states (two of which are New England and South Oregon).

"The One Where They All Turn Thirty" is fun because of its non-chronological structure (switching among different thirtieth birthdays), and I like the contrast between Rachel's and Phoebe's goals for their thirties. (Rachel's are about when she wants to get engaged, get married, and start having her three children; Phoebe's are about bouncing for a mile on a hippity-hop, meeting a Portugese person, and going to sniper school.)

Kathleen Turner as Chandler's dad is delightful. Best big-name Friends guest star ever? Discuss.

Lines:

Rachel: "I guess it wasn't Cupid that brought her here." Phoebe: "Nope, just a regular old flying dwarf."
Monica, distraught that Ross wants to play the bagpipes at the wedding: "Why is your family Scottish?!" Chandler: "Why is your family ROSS?!"
Phoebe, on the band Chandler wants to play at the wedding: "They suck so much that people actually die at their concerts. They just stop living."
Monica: "Who did we fight in World War I?" Rachel: " . . . Mexico?"
Ross: "Chandler, have you ever put on a black cocktail dress and asked me up to your hotel room?" Chandler: "No." Ross: "Then you are neither of your parents!"
Phoebe: "Why would you play hide and seek with someone you know is a flight risk?!"
Cecilia Monroe, asking where Joey had heard she was leaving Days of Our Lives: "Which writer? Was it bald or was it tall?"

The best line of the season is, when Ross is improvising that his Holiday Armadillo character is Santa's part-Jewish friend, Monica snarks, "Because armadillos also wandered in the desert?" Here's a little story about how good it is: my friend Lindsay was a TA for a class on the Jewish experience in America and one week borrowed my DVD to show "The One with the Holiday Armadillo" to her sections. She had to watch the episode six times in just a few days, but still laughed at that line on every viewing.

Let's talk about Chandler:
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this season is a low point for Chandler because it was a low point in the life of Matthew Perry. As I wrote in my notes when watching the seventh season premiere, "Matthew Perry lost like 30 lbs and 75% of his acting ability." There are even a few episodes where they worked around him by putting him in just one or two scenes, and that throws off the group dynamic.

"Chandler-humor" is one of Friends' distinguishing features; Chandler isn't the glue that holds the show together, exactly, but I would argue that more than the other character, he is the show's trademark. When Chandler's brand of humor is missing due to bad writing, strained acting, or simple absence of Chandler, it hurts the show. Of course, all of the members of the ensemble are important but, for example, an episode feels more "off" when Perry is out with prescription drug problems than when Schwimmer is scarce because he's directing the episode.

The more long-term injury to the show is that, at some point, the writers no longer knew who Chandler was supposed to be. At the very beginning of the series, Chandler is the most well-defined of all the characters. He's the funny guy; he's the guy who's sarcastic because he's insecure; he's the guy who's too immature to have a meaningful relationship but wishes he wasn't; he has a dull, soulless corporate job that he knows he's wrong for but which makes him successful; he makes fun of other people but he's just as quick to make fun of himself.

During the first six seasons of the show, the character stays consistent even while growing as a person. A series of serious relationships (with Janice, Kathy, and Monica) slowly teaches Chandler more confidence and courage--he still screws up sometimes when he's with Monica, but he knows when he does it and has the ability to make it better. He stops acting like a kid around Joey, but stays good friends with him. His job troubles mostly fade into the background.

But in Season Seven, the Chandler-based humor starts to turn from "Ha ha, another great Chandler zinger!" to "Ha ha, Chandler is pathetic!" People start to talk about him like he's not there or he's not worth noticing; he's inept at simple tasks; he can't perform sexually, etc. This trend continues in the last few seasons. Instead of becoming more confident in himself while everything goes right in his life, he inexplicably becomes less confident and less competent. Although it's not as noticeable as the devolution of Ross-humor, which depends more and more on Ross spazzing out in humiliating situations, it's a little sadder, because it depends on Chandler quietly becoming more and more pathetic. Maybe writing for a Chandler who continued to blossom and mature while still being funny was too hard. But I contend, based on the several seasons in which it did happen, that it was possible.

Top episodes:
"The One Where They All Turn Thirty"

"The One with Joey's New Brain"
or: "The One Where Ross Plays the Bagpipes" or: "The One Where Rachel and Phoebe Fight Over the Cell Phone"

"The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding"
or: "The One Where Joey Shoots a War Movie" or: "The One with the Pregnancy Test"

including the total classic:
"The One with the Holiday Armadillo"
or: "The One Where Phoebe Gets Joey Drums and a Tarantula" or: "The One Where Chandler is No Good at Bribery"

Adorable Pictures!

2010-01-01T21:40:00.005-06:00

I took some pictures of my nieces and nephews on our Christmas trip to Tennessee, and now that we're home and I've found the USB cord for my camera*, I will show some to you!

Sara dancing
David, his daddy, and the joy of football

Eliza being a comedian

I didn't even tell them to do this. These kids are pros.

Neal being avuncular

M. J. swinging
Matthew looking awesome.

*I wrote those two things like they're connected even though they're not. I had taken the cord with me to Tennessee; I just forgot where I'd put it until after we got home.

KGB

2009-12-30T17:12:00.000-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #16, and I think it's official that there's no way I'm getting to 27)

The trip from Madison to Knoxville is supposed to take about 11 hours. For whatever reason, it took us a hearty 14 this time. (There was some rain, and there was some traffic in Louisville, but that should not have added three hours--it's a real mystery as far as I'm concerned.) Basically, the background information you need for the following story is that we were bored.

In this age of the internet, one gets used to having almost all information one wants at one's fingertips. That is why KGB is pretty genius. Have a question you really want answered, but are out somewhere, not in front of your Google Machine? Text that question to KGB! (Well, I guess the limitation to this genius is that an ever-increasing number of people have phones that are practically computers anyway, but for those of us that still mostly use our phones to talk, it's very convenient.)

While we were bored, Neal and I got to wondering--how does KGB deal with questions that don't have easy answers? What would they say if you asked something super-obscure that's not on Wikipedia? What if you asked them something interpretative? What if you asked which came first, the chicken or the egg? What if you asked them something un-knowable? Then Neal came up with a question that I found so hilarious that I had to send it in.

"Was Jesus handsome?"

We wondered how they would answer this question. Would they have some cop-out, an "I don't know" dressed up with non-handsomeness information about Jesus? Or would they, as we hoped, just say, "Yes. Yes he was." (Or, more daringly, a plain "No"?) Instead, they exceeded our expectations.

"In a letter to Tiberius Caesar, Jesus is described as having golden hair and an angelic, sweet, and serene face. Sounds like someone the ladies could like!"

So we asked them a ridiculous question and they answered it. For telling me that Jesus was handsome (even if they made up that letter--I haven't verified that it's true--at least they went to the trouble to make something up), KGB has earned my undying respect.

My Last Football Post OF THE DECADE

2009-12-30T15:54:00.003-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #15)

Sorry, I just wanted to get on the "last [whatever] OF THE DECADE" bandwagon.

Anyway!

That bowl game was pretty bad, huh? I told my brother-in-law before it started, "Our special teams aren't very good." So, uh, thanks for proving me right, special teams. I guess. That game had it all--a blocked field goal attempt, a kickoff return for touchdown, a blocked punt, a botched long snap--and it all went in Georgia's favor, so it ended up not mattering that the Aggies' offense (and even the defense) outclassed Georgia's. This is exactly why people should care more about kicking and punting. When you're not a very good team, it's at least comforting if your special teams are very good, and if your special teams aren't good, well, that's just a disgusting way to lose.

That's all I have to say about that. Let's talk about Mike Leach locking a kid in a closet and then getting fired.

Just in case you haven't been following this story (and why haven't you? Mike Leach stories are always crazy), here's what went down: on Monday evening, the story broke that Texas Tech was going to suspend Leach from Tech's bowl game because one of his player's parents had complained that Leach had mistreated the player. The parents were likely emboldened to complain because one of them is Craig James, a pretty senior college football talking head for ESPN. (James had been scheduled to call the Alamo Bowl, in which Tech is going to play Michigan State, but--unfortunately for anyone who enjoys comically awkward situations--he's n longer going to.) Leach decided to file an injunction to try to make Tech not-suspend him. But today, just before Leach's lawyer and Tech's lawyer were going to fight the thing out in court, the Tech lawyer handed the Leach lawyer a "P.S.: Leach, you're totally fired" letter. And since they're claiming to have fired him with cause (which is to say, so they don't have to pay him the rest of his contract), Leach is still going to take them to court (unless they settle, of course) to get that money.

It was entirely clear as soon as the Adam James story broke that Texas Tech was going to use that as an excuse to fire Mike Leach. The Tech brass just hate him. It doesn't matter that he is far and away the best coach they've ever, ever had; they hate him for being a weirdo (and probably for being arrogant and not gladhanding the boosters enough, but I bet it's mostly for being a weirdo). Remember how they wanted to fire him just for not accepting a contract that was clearly unfavorable to him? They were just waiting for an excuse.

That being said . . . why did he lock a kid in the closet?

The James family accused Leach of making Adam James stand (not sit, not lie down) in a dark equipment shed for two hours after James sustained a concussion. Then, two days later, the coach made James stand in a closet for a couple more hours, with a trainer posted outside the door to keep him in there. Leach's response to these allegations was, in a nutshell, "So?" That is to say, he didn't disagree that any of that had happened, although he did add that James is "a slacker" and that Craig James is some kind of overbearing Little League dad. But, um, that doesn't explain anything. Neither of those are explanations for locking a guy in a closet. Even though it's Mike Leach, and he's crazy, I'm still confused.

Now I'm worried about Mike Leach. Do I want to see him get another job? Of course I do! The man is pure entertainment! Sure, he caused me quite a bit of pain as an Aggie fan, but as a fan of the sport in general, I always want him in the mix. You know who that previous sentence equally applies to? Billy Gillispie! So here's my idea: they team up as a pair of wild, rebel outsider coaches and go to some downtrodden school (because that's who would take them), then build up their respective programs and take the world by storm! As long as the place they go to has a pretty relaxed athletic director who wouldn't get into ego contests with Leach and who'd get Billy a grad assistant to drive him around (because, let's face it, in the drinking + driving equation, driving would be easier to talk Billy out of), it would be totally great. I would buy that school's sweatshirt tomorrow. So come on, somebody in the WAC, or somebody in a major conference who always gets pushed around! Take a chance! It will probably be worth it.

Notable Street Names in the Knoxville Area

2009-12-29T15:39:00.001-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #14)

Nubbin Ridge

Chert Pit Road

Kevin

Today's To-Do Lists

2009-12-22T17:46:00.003-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #13)

Things I've done that needed to get done:
1. wrapped presents
2. returned text books to bookstore
3. washed dishes

Things I've done that were nice to get done:
1. bought a memory card for the camera
2. cleaned out the trunk
3. cleaned snow off the car (there will be at least a little more by tomorrow morning, though)

Thing I did that I shouldn't have had to do, because the dudes on the second floor supposedly get paid by our landlady to do it:
1. shoveled the steps and the sidewalk (but only enough to get suitcases through in the morning)

Things that still need to get done:
1. wash the rest of the dishes
2. pack
3. charge phone

Things that should get done:
1. straighten up the living room (so it will be nicer to come home to)
2. charge camera battery
3. make sure I bought the right memory card for the camera
4. check weather forecasts along route tomorrow (although I'm afraid it might just worry me)

Thing I'm really looking forward to doing:
1. opening the presents we aren't taking with us! Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve to us!

P.S. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the box of presents. They got here today! We're very excited.

Things I Found When Cleaning out the Trunk of the Car

2009-12-22T17:37:00.003-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #12)

These are only (but all of) the things I didn't throw out or leave in the trunk.

1. a plastic mug

2. the lid for the plastic mug

3. one shoe

4. one bookend

5. a blue plastic clothes hanger

I Need Some Input, Please (Mostly from Ladies, but Dude Input is OK Too)

2009-12-19T21:24:00.005-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #11)

I have been working, off and on, on a project. It is my belief that almost all girls and women of a certain age bracket (roughly, my age bracket and below) with internet access have, at one time or another, taken a Disney Princess quiz. Here's a typical example, with questions like "My favorite outfit is" and the options "A flowing ball gown," "An arabian belly dancer's costume," "A swimming costume," or "A kimono." I think you can tell what I'm getting at here: that's lame. Asking "What would you most like have for a pet?" is all well and good in some situations, but if you pick the option of tiger--because what would be more awesome than having a tiger as a pet?--that doesn't make you Jasmine. That in no way gets at the essence of Jasmine. (There's also usually a hair color question. Hair color does matter, princess-quiz writers.)

So I am attempting to write The Definitive Disney Princess Quiz, one that isolates the essentials of what it means to be one princess or another. It's pretty tricky, which is why it's taking me so long. For one thing, it can't just be a boring multiple-choice quiz. Those are inadequate for my purposes. This is another thing you guys might be able to help me with, actually: I remember learning about a thing in 7th grade science. The example thing that we used was about birds. It was like, "If the bird has any red feathers, go to step 3. If it does not, go to step 4," and then at step 3, it would break down red feathered birds more until finally, after going through many steps, it would tell you exactly which bird it was. And I cannot remember the name of this thing. It would be so much easier to explain my idea for the princess quiz if I could.

Anyway, another reason it's taking me a while to write the quiz is that I've been re-watching all the princess movies to make sure I've got all my facts straight, and to observe them more closely to get more material. And do you know how hard it is to get ahold of a copy of Beauty and the Beast? Pretty hard. Admittedly, I've only checked at Blockbuster twice, but I also waited in line for it for weeks and weeks at my library and it still hasn't come through. I've had to inactivate my request so that it doesn't come in while I'm away for Christmas.

However, none of that is what I wanted to ask you about. My question is about the lineup of princesses. To decide which gals needed to be included, I consulted Wikipedia. It was actually pretty clear-cut who Disney counts as an offical princess (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mu Lan) and who they don't (Alice, Maid Marian, Giselle from Enchanted [because Amy Adams wouldn't let them license her face in perpetuity and who can blame her?]). But I first looked a couple months ago, before Disney released The Princess and the Frog.

Do I need to include the princess from The Princess and the Frog?

On the one hand, Disney clearly made The Princess and the Frog for the express purpose of adding Tiana to the Princess lineup. Right? On the other hand, people older than 12 or so aren't going to consider her part of the "real" princess group, because she's brand new. But back on the first hand, all of the princesses were brand new at some point. But then back on the negative hand . . . that movie looks pretty bad. I don't want to see it, but I have the feeling I have to in order to uphold the integrity of my princess quiz. Is my suspicion correct? Is that what I need to do in to make my quiz truly definitive?

All your thoughts on this question, or thoughts on anything else I should consider to make the quiz the best it can be, are much more than welcome.

Pride and Prejudice

2009-12-18T20:34:00.002-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #10)

As a possessor of two X chromosomes, I of course love the miniseries/Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. I'm making Neal watch it right now. But, as ever, and let's face it, Jane looks kind of like a dude.

A pretty dude, but a dude nonetheless.

Goat Cheese is on the Line! Act Now!

2009-12-18T20:08:00.002-06:00

(Blogsplosion Post #9)

Do you know my friend Craig? He invented a goat cheese recipe, and he would like for you to vote for his goat cheese recipe in a goat cheese recipe contest. Here, let me quote him verbatim; that'll be better:

I don't quite remember how I got on the mailing list of Ile de France cheese company. But I got an e-mail in November announcing their $1000 holiday appetizer contest. To make things even better, they offered to supply the cheese to the first 50 bloggers to respond. So I responded, and my goat cheese came a few days later (I actually asked for the goat brie, but I let that slide). My cheese odyssey started on a bad note when the UPS man, instead of taking my temperature-sensitive package to the apartment office on the Friday he delivered it, took it back to the UPS office until Monday. By the time I got my cheese, it was not very cold. But I ate it all and did not suffer, thankfully. [Editor's note: he didn't have to share because his wife has a tiny blond Republican under construction, and when you're undertaking that project, you're not supposed to eat "soft cheeses." You learn something new every day, right?]

When it came time to prepare my recipe entry, I figured that it was wrong to just copy something I found on the internet. I decided I should create my own recipe. So I scoured the internet for goat cheese dishes, and wrote down some ingredients that seemed to go well with it. I then compared this list to what was in my kitchen already. I'm cheap. I knew that I wanted to prepare something that wasn't too pretentious and didn't have too many ingredients. At the same time, my recipe had to be somewhat sophisticated. Thus, I decided to make arugula part of it. It seems to be all the rage these days, and it's not too expensive, despite what Obama might have you believe .

In the end, I came up with BLT wraps. I stacked bacon, tomato, and goat cheese, wrapped everything in arugula leaves, and secured each wrap with a toothpick. I then took about 30 photos of my creation, trying to get a good contest entry photo. I knew the fate of my recipe would hinge on presentation. I think I did OK. You can see the result, and my recipe, here . It tasted pretty good to me.

While you're over there looking at my recipe, I could use your vote down at the bottom of the page. 5 stars is the best vote, and the one I would prefer. There are 25 other competitors. A couple of them have an excessive number of followers, so I won't beat them, but I think I have a shot at 3rd prize. That would be neat, and it just might launch me on the path to stardom. Or I'll win some free cheese. Either way, I'm happy. Thanks for your support.

Anyway, you should vote for Craig. I didn't even know what arugula was before I saw the picture of his recipe, so I'm bowled over just by that. You only have until the 21st to vote, so like I said, act now!