Julie, Julia, and the Twilight Zone

What blogger couldn't weigh in on the movie of the book of the blog, Julie & Julia, about the woman who was already an awesome cook and writer but was stuck working at the Freedom Hole hotline because no one can just do what they love and be happy without money, until one day Julia Child appears in her cupboard and possesses her, making her chop up all the haters, sparing the too-good-to-be-true husbands and amazingly well-trained cat?

ME! I saw the movie a while back, with Nan and Mum--who loved it, because they love food, and I can't critique the movie, because for a movie about women bonding over food it wasn't bad and I don't like picking apart other people's work because that's fucking lame, so I thought I'd fire off a list of things I learned about myself from the movie.

One, I am apparently a man. A man who hates food. An anorexic man, even, because after two hours of watching people have orgasms over food--and yeah, Julia Child made out with her husband, I just...you need to know that, not that I had a problem with that, or Adam Lambert's AMA performance for that matter--I was just feeling a bit like I'd had a really bad migraine.

Maybe that's because I had a migraine. See, I had just gotten into playing Café World on Facebook, not because I like food or anything, but...it's Facebook, you understand, and I use Facebook ironically, and I have migraines, and doing anything online for more than the minute it takes to play Bejeweled Blitz makes me start acting like all those people in The Happening just before they step in front of a combine harvester. I smell in algebra!

Anyway, I'd been doing fine serving bacon cheeseburgers--and I'm a vegetarian, remember (not many people do, because I don't shove it down everyone's throat)--but I'd staggered off to take Excedrin and my caramel apples went bad before I could serve them and my rating tanked and all the computer people weren't giving me coins anymore and after that maybe I didn't want to see two hours of a Nora Ephron film about food. Although the occasional up yours to Sen. McCarthy was beautiful. The killing of the lobster might have negated that, had I been in the room, but I walked out. I came back, I always do. I didn't walk out on Orphan, mind you. Orphan kicks ass. See it. You'll know when to look away.

Afterwards, The Trade-Ins episode of The Twilight Zone was on, and I couldn't stop staring at the old dude's powdered eyelashes, so maybe I was just being '80s-level picky that night.

This is not a reflection at all on the movie or the blog or the books or food in general, really. There was a meme on Facebook, again I don't know why I did it, and it told me I was a spork because I chose Julia Child as the person I'd most want to sit and listen to. Sinatra was on the list, loads of people were on the list, but I figured Julia Child would have good stories and not be all that dangerous and/or likely to make me want to hang myself afterward. I've since read Julie Powell's blog too and it's fabulous. So I guess I just get diabetes from Nora Ephron films, that's all. Sure. It's me. Me, me, me.

OH YEAH, speaking of me, blogs didn't have pop-up windows like, "YOU HAVE A COMMENT!" in 2002 and they still don't (thank god). Call me picky, but War Games prevented me from getting a modem until I was 16. I had a modem, in the house, when I was 12, and it had to go back to Games 'n' Gadgets, unopened, because of its untapped lethalness. So yes, I have an issue about movies misrepresenting the common everyday computer.

But you know what? That whole Julie/Julia story is an up yours to fear and that I can get behind 100%.

Even if I can't look directly at cream sauce without puking. Or aspic. Or raw poultry. Or fish. Or--okay, I'm physically incapable of puking in real life due to my hernia, so don't worry that I'm off puking somewhere. Anorexia's nothing to make fun of. But puke jokes always amused me, because as I've pointed out earlier in this post, I seem to be a very weird boy.

---

Nevermind that, Hey Pais has a much better take on Julie & Julia.

Julie, Julia, and the Twilight Zone

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Just Called To Say I Love You

Did I ever tell the story about how I damn near chopped my finger off? This week it'll be twenty-five years since I sat on a lawn chair that had been improperly set up by the parent whose name I did not keep and...felt something I guess I never really forgot.

I was nine years old at the time, and so little things like my dog Pookie being the only one to come running to my rescue and the song that happened to be on when I dragged my injured hand back into the house like Luke Skywalker on a good day stick in my head more vividly than what I ate for breakfast yesterday.

The song was I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder, and only two years later I'd be bitching about how wacky the Bb chord sounded when I played it. I play the piano, you know. The finger that I had to wrap up like a Twinkie until the nail grew out enough for me to pull off by myself gives me trouble, but I don't mind it so much anymore. I don't think it was broken, but to this day the joint sort of aches like it's saying, "Hi, remember when you pulled that nail off and was all 'I can see the nail polish from THIS SIDE' and it took forever but that dog was awesome." Or something. Pookie was also the only one to sit in every day as I learned to play this song.

There was a wicked remix of this song where Stevie sang like a robot and Z-100 used to play it all the time. It's like a metaphor for how much more there is to the story. Like the part where I couldn't listen to the song for years, but that part's no fun.

What is fun is that my main concern the night I crushed my fingertip was whether I'd be able to work the VCR remote to tape V: The Series. Next month, there's a new V coming to TV and I doubt I'll be using the remote to find it. LIFE IS WEIRD. I wouldn't change a second of it, though. Although I guess I'd tone down the whining about my finger while Stevie Wonder is blind.

Songs of My Misspent Youth: I Just Called To Say I Love You

Death Turns Off The Television

This past Sunday Billy Mays died. Anyone who has read this blog since the beginning knows I was pretty harsh to that dude, and I needed to acknowledge that and maybe, you know, apologize. All the times that I'd tell the TV to shut up, I didn't actually mean he should die. I feel quite guilty about that now. Seriously.

It could be a sign that I'm getting way too old for my own good when I recognize every celebrity who dies, but last week would've blown the mind of even teeny little ten-year-old me, and that is probably why this post exists.

Last year on my birthday, the first thing I heard was the terrible news that George Carlin had died. That was sad, I likened it to someone jumping out of my cake and socking me in the gut.

So this year when the news came that Ed McMahon had died, I...you know how my Poppy used to get me to watch Star Search, right? He and my mum watched that show all the frikkin' time, and back then I had no idea I'd end up knowing what day it was if dancing was on, so I'd trudge in and watch the girls sing or the kids dance and then I'd store it in the part of my mind that went back and thought about all the times we watched Star Search and how it led to me making 8mm music videos with puppets and how my Poppy used to watch The Tonight Show all the time, and I of course came to the conclusion that anything that made me remember my Poppy was okay. Sad, but okay.

Then Farrah Fawcett died. This was sadder because I don't like to see anyone who totally fought a lousy disease lose, and growing up I don't think I ever missed an episode of Charlie's Angels. In fact...I used to play Charlie's Angels in my head. I can't explain what that entailed, a lot of jumping around, basically. But it's difficult to be an only child and play Charlie's Angels alone. They were a team, you know. I kept up with her movies, too...if you've never seen a movie called Saturn 3, now would be a good time to catch up. It was a space thriller with Farrah Fawcett in the middle of a sort of love triangle between Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, and a super battle droid named Hector that could pluck eyelashes out of eyes and...well, I don't want to spoil the rest. Then watch The Burning Bed because that was awesome.

As my mother was telling me of Farrah Fawcett's passing, I got the weird Irish, "I wonder who'll be next," everyone-goes-in-threes thought. I seriously did not expect who was next. I mean, it wasn't a complete shock...but....

I had The Puppy out for walkies when Mum told me Michael Jackson died.

The sticker pictured somewhere to your right was stuck on my cabinet door in 1984 by my Mum, who I think wanted me to be interested in what all the kids were into. She also talked me into getting a shirt that had the word THRILLER across it with a glittery glove right over the er...chest area. I left that sticker on the cabinet and it's been there for a quarter of a century. Sure, the edges dried out and it got snagged on things, but it's still there.

I love Michael Jackson's music. As soon as I heard he was gone every song piled up and moonwalked my brain into a somewhat surprising blubbering mess. Beat It was the first song I heard on Z-100. Billie Jean was the second video I taped off TV. I watched Thriller a hundred times even though I freaked out over Weird Al's cat eyes at the end of Eat It. Man In The Mirror was playing in a store I desperately wanted to leave but couldn't on account of being 13, so I stood there, listening to the words while my family bought the tiles I would eventually help install and that sappy song about being the change you want to see in the world helped me realize I needed to stop being such a self-centered bitch.

Over the weekend all the radio stations in the area played songs they hadn't played in years. Songs everyone knows. The songs that are now all he'll ever record. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' was on a few times, and that, of all of them, may be my most favorite. Back when I was teaching myself BASIC on the Atari I listened to Thriller a lot, and so all those songs are pretty much burned into my mind forever, but that one...it has ties to a lot of things, a lot of people, and unlike my weekend series of, "I moped a lot during this song," Jackson's music got me moving. Got me to do something. Got me to give a shit about the world, even. YES, I'm saying I care what's going on in Iran and Honduras because Michael Jackson sang songs about healing the world and everyone having the same blood and that if we want to make the world better, we could. That's what I'll remember, that's what I'll keep with me, that's what I'll hand down. That, the sparkly glove, and the moonwalk.

Death Turns Off The Television

Commercials That Make Me Want To Lock Myself In The Bathroom

Bears don't use toilet paper.

I know what bears are legendary for doing, and it is not using toilet paper.



No, damn you, Charmin.

WHY DID MR. WHIPPLE HAVE TO DIE?!

Commercials That Make Me Want To Lock Myself In The Bathroom

Commercials That Make Me Want To Kill

I don't have rollover minutes with my phone plan. It's okay, because I can't speak half the time. No, really, it's okay because only two people in my directory are still living.

But there's these commercials where the non-existant entity known as rollover minutes take on a life of their own, Chucky-style, and become fascinating to people I don't care about.

Daft asses selling bowls of kitchen timers being chided by their mothers as a device for learning why some phone plans are better than others is very confusing. These timers, they aren't things you can actually buy and plug into your phone. I HAD TO TELL THIS TO SOMEONE VERY DEAR TO ME.

THEY DON'T EXIST. They aren't real. Say it with me. It's okay, I see things that aren't there too, but I don't go attributing characteristics to crap and making other people believe in my psychosis, do I?

Oh, right.

But I don't put it on TV morning, noon, and night, do I?

Commercials That Make Me Want To Kill

Commercials That Make Me Choke

I can't say I've never smoked, because until the age of seventeen I had so much second-hand smoke it's a wonder I don't sound...oh wait, I do sound a bit scratchy from time to time, don't I? Anyway, as a kid I did all the sensible things to try to help people in my family quit smoking: hide the expensive buggers, crush them, wet them and put them all back into the pack, poke holes in the filters...and ask, time and time again, just stop.

Price hikes managed to succeed where I failed at causing the last smoker in my family to quit. Or something. Iron will. She stopped 11 years ago and never looked back. I think it's kind of awesome, actually, but then...the anti-smoking ad with the multiple amputee was airing around the time Mum's leg ulcer was at its worst. The shmuck in the commercial, inexplicably hanging out in a children's playground, refused to quit even when his circulation was compromised. I found that out from Google. I guess a lot of people found that out because the ad was replaced with something more disturbing, a man who plays a doctor on TV showing the insides of a lung riddled with cancer. Those ads hit around the time I was losing friends and relatives left and right to respiratory diseases. Fie, late-night television.

I said last week I don't really give a flip about commercials, and I don't, I don't watch TV for commercials, I watch it...when I watch it, to forget reality.

So now there's this crying little boy in an airport or something. I don't know why he's crying, kids tend to crack up over anything--I know, I spent years as one of those--and you know what happens next in my version? Either a creepy wheezing man lurches over to show the little boy his dead fly collection or mumsie returns ten puffs closer to doom only to be, "WHY DIDN'T YOU KEEP UP?!" And that weeping toddler will take up smoking to cope with the PTSD he incurred when some weird camera crew watched it all AND DID NOTHING.

Or not. He'll grow up, have a few kids of his own, and one will require an asthma inhaler while he and his equally polluting wife yuk it up at whatever the hell they're watching. Beer ads, maybe. That's the other new PSA, some kid who totally doesn't appear to be having any kind of asthma attack pauses his Godzilla/GI Joe makeout session to take a hit of the inhaler. Bad parents, filling the air the carcinogens. Tsk.

Don't smoke kids, it's not as cool as you think it is and you'll probably end up making people who love you sad. Seriously. I don't want to watch those awful PSAs, stop now before they make a new one. One even weirder than the one where time runs backwards and roaches decompose around where the cigarette butt some hot chick puts in her mouth falls.

Commercials That Make Me Choke

Commercials That Make My Mind Weep.

I apologize for my recent mopey posts, but real life tends to suck some of the time. I would also prefer it not to. This month, however, I decided to go with a theme to amuse you with, and that theme is why the hell are some commercials so mind-numbingly stupid?

I thought I'd start with Cialis.

Yeah, I went there. Mind you, I don't care one way or the other about commercials, but the TV's on a lot, and people tend to ask me what the hell is up with certain ad campaigns, like my secret knowledge of Internet clues me into why people are wasting time taking baths on a mountain top when they could be doing what that pill they're advertising is said to help them do.

For those of you who haven't witnessed the ads, you could look them up on YouTube, but then again, maybe you don't want to. The gist of every one of the ads is a couple is getting overly friendly with each other and then the neighbors show up. After a list of ways the pill can kill you and everyone in the vicinity of your home, the couple have been transformed into Cylon hybrids are in tubs, separate tubs, watching the sunset. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY, AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE.

There are theories, though. I Googled "Cialis bathtub" and came up with endless speculation on WHAT...THE...HELL.

It's times like that, when I'm faced with a problem that has no solution, that I start editing--only in my mind, officer--alternate realities where Norman Bate pays a visit to the two utter twits bathing in the frikkin' woods. Or Harvey Keitel's character from Point Of No Return, even, with the jug of acid. Yeah, that's right, I don't care if you enjoy getting together with your men friends in a shack out in the middle of nowhere singing Elvis filks about rival remedies to having to live with what you live with, and I don't care if you made a college student that can't do their own laundry and therefore has to interrupt your sexy times, just don't make me have to try to explain what the hell you're doing on the beach in a bathtub. The ocean is two feet away!

While near the ocean, toss in the Enzyte ads with that sick grinning bastard and those giggling women who all seem to have bought the same vibrator. Then throw in a live grenade. The god of testosterone demands it.

Commercials That Make My Mind Weep.

I'm So Average It Hurts...Less and Less Each Year.

There's this dig about people who watch American Idol, that they're oblivious to current world events. It's not true. Still, it keeps me from talking about what I watch because I figure the least amount of judgment I bring on myself the better, especially considering the child I used to be would at the very least think it's pretty freaky that I know who's won every season of the three "competitive reality" shows we keep up with.

Sure, as a kid I used to run screaming a few feet away from the TV when Star Search would come on, but it should have been a sign of things to come when I'd linger near the doorway to check out the crazier singers. I could blame my Mum or my Poppy, as Mum got my Poppy hooked and then he used to call me in to see some of the better singers, but no, see, he had taste. He picked Linda Eder, while I was all fascinated by The Kingpins, a band whose drummer jumped all over the drumkit like balancing on the highhat produced an acceptable sound.

Now I'm the one making plans to have something to do near the TV when American Idol and Dancing With The Stars is on. It's how my comic strip gets put together, even some of these posts are written during the commercial breaks between awkward performances. I guess Mum started it, although she tells me I'm the one who was all gung ho to sit through two hours of Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard alternately singing to and acting like they were going to beat the snot out of each other for no reason other than to take up two hours of my life. I don't know. I just don't remember anymore.

This week Dancing With The Stars came back, and so far I like David Alan Grier, but I'm never as rabid over the people on there because they all grow on me eventually. American Idol, though, this year the show is full of guys I want to hear sing more stuff, and my inner 12-year-old CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY. Maybe they're good, but there are times I swear there's some hypnotic light pattern going on to lull me into a stupor. For all my lousy memory, I can name the top thirteen contestants and already have favorites. Trickery must be employed. I can't remember my own name half the time, how have these people become part of my vocabulary already?!

I have a theory, of course, about why these shows are so popular. Other than there being little else to sit down to watch with your family after a long day. Because it's like people want to feel like they can control who gets kicked out for doing a crap job. How beautiful would it be to have Citibank Apprentice? Better yet, stash Gordon Ramsey aboard an overpriced personal jet full of CEOs on their way to a retreat and let him rip once they've reach cruising altitude. I predict a hit.

Tags: March 2009, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, television, confessions

I'm So Average It Hurts...Less and Less Each Year.

Almost the Definition of Irony

Did you know it was National Invisible Chronic Illness week? Neither did I! I didn't even know there was such a thing.



It's too late in the week to get into my history of burning innards and disco brains, or how I eventually became grateful for the nosebleeds because it was like big messy proof that something weren't right in this girl. Wasn't always pleased to wake up with one, though.

So instead I'll make fun of the latest NY Deptartment of Health and Mental Hygiene bulletin about sleep, called Sleep: Are You Getting Enough?. This is on the same page as the 9/11 memorial. Um. Sleep well! Hope you wake up.

According to the bulletin, many people don't get enough sleep, but some people don't need so much, and newborns need to sleep away their youth. Tsk. So if you happen to be a newborn and you are not getting 18 hours of sleep, ask your parents for Benadryl. They'll be giving it to you soon enough. (I should note nobody ever drugged me to sleep as a kid--no, Nan was happy to have the company watching Britcoms and the Late Night Double Feature and I learned a lot from late-night HBO. You can search YouTube for Dressed To Kill on your own.)

Some reasons for not sleeping include having a fast-paced lifestyle or children in the bed. No explanation for what a newborn is to do if he happens to be in bed with himself. One offered solution is to go to bed only when sleepy. I predict all of New York is going to be really quiet tomorrow afternoon.

Then they go into how you may not be sleeping because you might not be breathing, or have a disease keeping you awake. Well...I hadn't thought of that...gosh....

The last page goes into the usual accusations of being a lazy sod, or a drug addict, or using the bed for unbedly activities, and promotes use of the medical industry. It took four people to create that brochure and waste an hour of my night. Well, the whole hour wasn't a waste as I found the original CBS Late Late Show intro and the WPIX Film Festival. I used to wait for those things, man. Never used to be able to explain how great they were, either, because all the other kids I knew went to bed way before Hart To Hart even came on. I used to feel like a freak because I couldn't sleep on command, and it's cost me jobs and friendships, but those late hours of the night were made for something, and someday, maybe, I'll figure it out.

Until then, turn off the TV and go to bed.

Almost the Definition of Irony

The Things I'm Exposed To.

I'm not sure why CNN Headline News was on our TV today. I didn't put it on. You know if I've gotten to the television first if '80s music videos, game shows, British comedy or Japanese movies are on. I get my news from the Internet, pretty much always have when you consider I was 16 when I first logged on. So I have little to no use for television news.

I leave the room one minute, and Bill Gates dies.

Bill Gates is not dead.

But I come back downstairs, all ready to take my little furry men for their daily constitutional, and mum tells me Bill Gates is dead. My response--because I can talk today, but that's another story for another post--is, "The Bill Gates?"

Yes, she told me, it was on the news. Maybe not, after all.

Shaken, and feeling like I'd probably be the only person I know who feels bad about this, I fired up Windows and checked Fark. Because, you know, I figured they'd know for sure. Nothing.

Because Bill Gates didn't die. Bill Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft today. BIG DIFFERENCE.

CNN Headline News, meanwhile, cut to Nelson Mandela's birthday party too late to hear everyone singing Happy Birthday to him, but they would have talked through it anyway, and then the anchors fixated on the state of Amy Winehouse's lungs when they spotted her hair next to Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela and Amy Winehouse were on screen together, and hell, even I hope Amy Winehouse gets it together and goes on to win a grammy when she's in her 70s, but...Nelson Mandela. It's his birthday. The anchors then talked about what 46664 stood for, and one said it was his prisoner number about two minutes before the other anchor did, and it was so unscripted it was like being in a room with like, normal people. I don't wanna hear that kinda going on after they've just killed Bill Gates.

Bill Gates is not dead. Happy Birthday, Nelson Mandela!

The Things I'm Exposed To.

Addictions Have Changed, People Have Not.

There will be more on this Saturday, but as I was preparing to drag myself to the garage in the sun, Good Morning America was warning against the dangers of watching too much TV and playing too many videos games if you're of the age when you should do the proper thing and breed, then tell your kids not to do too much TV watching or video game playing.

They reminded everyone to "have a vibrant real life."

I'm too bloody tired to formulate a truly snarky response, and that, I think, says everything.

Addictions Have Changed, People Have Not.

The May That Got Away.

I've been busy, and by "busy" I mean I have taken on more work than I am capable of doing in the amount of time given to me in this lifespan. Otherwise it would not have been noticable in real time. There wouldn't have been the blog equivalent of dead air for a few weeks and then a post explosion. These posts are dated where they ought to be, at least, and so this blog has a better sense of the passage of time than its author, who is doing the work of a 14-year-old, a thirty-somethingth-year-old, and a 78-year-old man.

I did get to see Kristi Yamaguchi win Dancing With The Stars, though, and my boy David Cook won Idol the next night. It made me happy, but next week, when those shows aren't on, I will get morose. But then So You Think You Can Dance started, and that's the new shiny thing I will watch while I work now. While listening to David Cook, because his voice makes me happy. Hey, it's the first year my entire family wanted the same person to win, Wednesday was like a billion parties in my head.

Then I had to work. And wash my car. And do some shopping. And mowing. My right shoulder has been on strike since the 3rd...of January, I think. It's a good thing I have another arm.

Which reminds me, a few weeks back, Nan found Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus, which was...interesting...in a Twin Peaks kind of way, and some Casper Van Dien movie about terror on a boat. I rather preferred the Fur one, even though stuff blew up in the boat one. Had there been really hairy wigmakers and women who held feather dusters with their feet on the boat, I think a blockbuster would have emerged.

Speaking of blockbuster...Indy IV. Didn't see it yet. But I am not so far gone that I am not aware Jones has returned. Somehow not seeing a movie can also be a big event in my week.

At some point late Friday...early Saturday...somewhere in the fog of what happens to me after being exposed to sunlight and the demands of being a human with skills, I noticed Nan left on the Hugh Grant/Dennis Quaid movie American Dreamz. It's a dark comedy about a musical reality show. Part of the finale involves the song My Way, and I sat there flabbergasted, as it reminded me of something I did, a year before the movie came out. I checked, it was a year before. Great minds think alike, I guess? Is the song so obvious a choice?

This led to me disabling LeechBlock to hit Google as the sun rose behind me so I could see just how common my weird thoughts really are. At least I can console myself with the knowledge that my Galactic Idol came before Ned Beui's, and this Galactic Idol idea, and this really neat animated version. I wonder if maybe, years down the line, someone will Google me. Hmm.

I just feel like now I should add disclaimers to my comic, that my Darth Vader was singing the Sid Vicious version, and American Dreamz wasn't that great of a movie, so don't be thinking that's where I got my idea for Vader's big number. I never saw the movie until tonight. Things like that worry me about all the things I plan to do. Has someone else already done it, either better or more widely known, and I just don't know? I am losing and not even snoozing. Alas.

The May That Got Away.

The Slow Degradation of Time

Saturday's big movie with the popcorn and all was Elizabeth: The Golden Age, because Nan loves Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen. Clive Owen is very nice-looking in this movie. I'm not usually one to knock a movie, so I'll just say I was expecting Gandalf or a Kraken to appear any minute. Also there is a scene at the end that reminded me of the Eurythmics video Here Comes The Rain Again. It may not be worth watching the movie just to see what I mean.

On Sunday, choosing a movie to see was interesting. We have a few of them sitting around that we haven't seen yet, you know. Sure. Two of these movies are Atonement and Enchanted. I now give you a brief, edited excerpt of choosing a movie to see on Sunday, or what I like to call the reason I probably won't even keep writing about the movies we watch much longer.

(The mass on EWTN is blasting away in the background as Nan looks at the written list I keep because I still don't have much of a voice. Also, Mum has some sort of cold or something that makes her sneeze and be evil.)

Nan: I guess Enchantment.

Me: Wh--

Mum: Yeah, Atonement's fine.

Me: Enchanted or Atonement?

Nan: They're the only long ones.

Me: We've still got Die Hard 4.

Nan: I want to see something light.

(It is then I realize she must want Enchantment.)

Nan: Enactment.

Me: Enchanted?

Mum: I think she said Atonement.

(At this point, the mass Nan is watching on TV has been ruined. I go upstairs to set up Enchanted, because I'm feeling particularly evil.)

Enchanted, however, was really really good. I don't know what's wrong with me. There was singing, and...and...it was a Disney movie. But I...enjoyed it.

So then we watched Paula Abdul hallucinate an entire Jason Castro concert. I really can't add anything to that, because I swear I saw Biggs visit Luke on Tatooine in Star Wars back in 1980. I always thought "Reality" was the wrong term for any show involving tense music and flashing lights, anyway. Although this has been my reality since 1984, so maybe I am Paula Abdul.

On Wednesday, Nan found The Last Supper a movie with Annabeth Gish and Cameron Diaz in it. I was in the middle of the effects of exposure to "moderate" tree pollen and so I happened to be looking up at the ceiling when I heard Bill Paxton turn into the far extreme right wing of the Internet. I ended up looking at the screen like, "WHAT WHAT WHAT?" for the next hour and a half. Because, like Eating Raoul this movie was crazy fun that gives me hope that someday, my weird-ass scribblings will find an audience.

Nan noted that it must be killing night when she found the end of Six Ways To Sunday, and it was more far out, artsy, graphic killing and er, hey! Deborah Harry!

I needed those two movies, you know. Because I have too much time to think the things I've written will never have an audience while I'm busy doing things that take me from my writing.

On Thursday I discovered my allergy was actually the cold Mum had, and Nan caught it too, so in addition to working on all those things I do, I'm sicker than usual again. Also, I have been taking psuedoephedrine-laced drugs so I can function, which means any day now you ought to see me in a bell tower somewhere, firing my Lego Stormtrooper arm at people. The only reason I haven't done it yet is because I'm trying to find a string long enough to reel the arm back in so I don't have to keep going up and down stairs to retrieve it, because if there's one thing that kills a homicidal rage, it's the prospect of having to climb stairs.

The Slow Degradation of Time

Hey American Idol!

What's with all the songs about death? The couple of hours a week I take my brain off the hook, the last thing I'm itching to see is everyone crying and being, like, human. Except David Cook, he's perfectly entitled to cry if he wants to.

That said, I do not expect to survive Andrew Lloyd Webber week.

Hey American Idol!

The Paso Doble And Me Go Way Back.

You know, I always loved Kristi Yamaguchi. I first saw her as a pairs skater, and that was probably twenty-something-ish years ago, so I've liked her practically forever. I figured she'd do well on this season of Dancing With The Stars, and she has, but I damn near lost my mind when she danced the paso doble to Blue Monday, and I can't understand why I loved the whole thing so much, because usually the band makes me cringe with their covers. (I feel I should apologize to the band if they ever Google themselves and find this, but I cringe at wedding bands, too, so don't let me stop you, just rock on and don't mind me.) I think it just proves that Blue Monday is so fabulous it can't be done anything but great.

I found the dance on YouTube, and I'm putting it here because admitting I watch figure skating and Dancing With The Stars isn't enough, I'm taking you all with me.



Adam Corolla's paso doble was also frikkin' hilarious, and I was sad to see him and Julianne Hough go so soon, but it was fun while it lasted.

The Paso Doble And Me Go Way Back.

Movie MADNESS!

A while back we saw No Country For Old Men because hey, we like Javier Bardem! Um. We still like him even though he does award-winning scary. Okay, see, mainstream cinema, THIS is how you do action movies. Maybe some of the scenes were harsh, BUT I COULD SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON and even appreciated the one or two scenes where a handheld camera was used because it made perfect sense. Also, while watching the scene involving the pharmacy and subsequent first aid, Mum said, "Why didn't I think of that?" Laugh, it's funny. I will admit the thing that happens with the car at the end is now tied with that episode of Homicide: Life on the Streets where the car goes under the truck as things I can live without experiencing, but that scene and the whole movie deserved its awards.

We also watched The Kingdom--or as I like to call it, the terror of knowing what shakycam is about--started out as a documentary, took a turn through rah-rah one group, boo another group, and ended up making me fret over Jason Bateman. Jason Bateman fans can relax, though. It's the nice Colonel who you shouldn't get too attached to. It will only make you sad.

To get a break from news, decorating and cooking shows, we end up leaving on a lot of old game shows and what should happen to be on right after all that fretting over Jason Bateman but Teen Week on Body Language, where the celebrity teens were Lisa Bonet and Jason Bateman. I think I said, "It came from the '80s." I totally missed who won, but Tom Kennedy (the host, who is one of those people I spent long nights awake with and therefore I like him) asked Lisa Bonet to explain what her show was about and took a few seconds pronouncing, "Huxtable." Yeah...early '80s.

A week passed. I spent much of it outdoors. I think. I can't really remember. Dancing With The Stars and Idol seemed to feature heavily. Usually I use the time sitting near those shows to write and work on my strips, and I appear to have done some of that, although slower than usual. It's just one of those lunar cycles.

This weekend, we saw a neat little musical called Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. It was fabulous. As I'm writing this, I realize I've been escaping into Tim Burton movies for about 20 years of my life. They are highlights indeed. Mum said she never would have watched any other version, and that's praise, man, high praise.

Nan put on Emma. No, not Emma with Jeremy Northam, the other one. The one with Sybil Fawlty as Miss Bates. Being I consider myself Miss Bates, and I love Prunella Scales, this Emma was almost as cool as "my" Emma. Each one has different bits of the story, so I wuv them both.

Tonight, Nan came across 300, and left it on. Mum probably would not have liked it, if not for Xerxes' facial piercings, then for when it gets messy toward the end. As it is Gerard Butler is one of Nan's men, so...er...I thought I'd told her how it ends, eh...if you've not been spoiled on the movie already (by, say, history), don't get too attached to any Spartan who keeps both eyes. But it's artsy. Oh so artsy. And I'm glad I saw it. I saw 300! </movie nerd>

Movie MADNESS!

The Week From Another Universe.

Last Saturday, we saw Robin Cook's Invasion, which was a made-for-television mini-series starring Luke Perry that I had managed to miss for eleven years. Now that I've seen it, my forehead hurts from being slapped so much, and I'm worried about my rock collection. Oh my...I worry that things I write are too close to stories that already exist, but this mini-series, the author (not so much Robin Cook as the guy who writes a lot of Farscape) obviously had no fears of this. By the end I weas expecting Luke Skywalker or Tom Jones or Will Smith to pop out, start punching people, and saying some regular-TV-friendly things while curing the aliens with farts. Okay, gas, but still, it's funnier to say farts.

Why hasn't an alien invasion story been done yet where the cure is farts? It would be a hit. I'm copyrighting that idea now, unless someone else already has. I'm not saying the special effects themselves weren't pretty good for CBS in 1997, but some of the dumbest people in creation managed to take down a dude in Sith makeup and an army base crawling with people infected by the space tinglies. For the first hour, the main doctor--played by Kim Catrall, who I loved in Big Trouble In Little China and Mannequin--is like, "Gosh, some people died really oddly, but everyone has the frikkin' flu, BUT IT CAN'T BE THESE STONES YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, I mean, it's not like children were coming in saying stones bit them, or anything."

And then they go to an underground government facility, but the student who knows how to use the Internet has to use his laptop to do stuff. Like they don't already have computers down there...okay, maybe they don't, the scientists would have all been playing Solitare instead of fighting space herpes. Oh wait, the underground government facility was totally deserted. Maybe security was in the other room playing solitare. Unless they were in the desert waiting for the spaceship. Or maybe it was an incredibly clean, yet abandoned facitity and that's why they had "VR microscopes" to show the nasties living in the rocks, which looked a bit like enemies from DOOM, but no Internet.

I can't say I didn't have a good time watching the movie, because I had ball. It was like Rocky Horror, I was rasping all kinds of helpful advice to the characters, it was great. I don't get to have three hours of fun like that often.

I didn't come back here and make notes of what outstanding things happened this week, so much of it is lost. I did bust out the pole pruner and take down some vines that were going to grow even longer and higher and tangle with the telephone lines eventually, but I didn't get to pick them up the same day I did it, so I was treated to the entertainment known as cats dragging a tangle of vines behind them on a leash, looking like, "OMG, it has me!" No, I'm sorry, that's mean, to giggle at my guys when they pick something up and get freaked out by it. Even if it is frikkin' adorable.

I also used the pole pruner and the bow saw and the entire palette of instruments of death to take down a young mulberry tree that was growing in the front yard. Mulberries can get to be about 80 feet high and six feet in diameter, and the driveway with my car on it was one foot away, and the power lines were even closer to the tips of the branches, so I did what I had to do, man. I'm not proud. But now I have a bargaining chip for all those trees I'm growing in the backyard, that are starting to become visible above the stuff I've had strategically placed for the past two years. Oh yes. Never forget the mulberry of the front yard.

The storm we had on Wednesday left me with even more nature to pick up and send off to the happy land where seagulls play, and I wrote a whole post about that with pictures. Some bird who liked to live dangerously was out trying to get worms in 35mph winds. Birds rock.

Although I can't remember the exact order this week, it's safe to say a lot of the rest of my time goes to things like sleeping, not sleeping, eating, working, driving around, gathering food, feeding my furry children, playing with my furry children, watching American Idol, drawing, writing, cleaning, spacing out, listening to music (this week it's Imogen Heap again), watching X-Files and movies I've already seen, and of course YouTube. Lots and lots of YouTube. Remember last year when I'd use Saturday to just post the crazy stuff I found on YouTube? Man, those were the days.

Have I mentioned that I'm crazy about this disturbing video of a Japanese guy wearing a horse mask and little else, cooking toxic mushrooms and dancing? No? YES.

The Week From Another Universe.

The Weakend Reviews.

While it looks to me like I apparently do nothing but sit in front of a TV, I do have memories of feeding cats and playing with cats and feeding cats and playing ball with a dog and all, but that starts crossing the line of telling you how many times I tied and untied my shoes in a week, and unsurprisingly, that number is 7, but that's not what I started a blog for, y'know? I didn't really start it to tell you what new movies I saw, either, but hey.

For Mum's birthday I wanted to get Enchanted because she liked the look of it. It wasn't coming out until the middle of the week, though, so we ended up watching The Darjeeling Limited, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say was the better movie. I mean, some people like singing princesses, I prefer quiet movies with weird stuff going on. Not that The Darjeeling Limited was weird, but it was different. I liked it, but it might be because I saw it at the right time. There's a family drama plot thing in it that might trigger crazy in some people, but no, not me, because I know people like those brothers, so I laughed...oh, how I laughed. I also dug Anjelica Huston's hair, for some reason.

After that long-ass paragraph, I bet you wouldn't believe we watched two movies last Saturday. Wow. They were both under 1:40, though, and we'd had Wild Hogs on tape from cable for like a month, because I knew Nan wanted to see it, because she told me she couldn't wait to see it, because John Travolta and William H. Macy were in it! But somehow for a month, every time I'd say, "We've still got Wild Hogs," it was met with a general sense of hell no I'm not watching that.

Wild Hogs was fantastic. PPPPBT. I was ready to jump out a window during the bit where the annoying children of two of the characters were being introduced, but I told myself that within five minutes Nan and Mum would remember they wated to see the movie and like it. And they did. So this proves I have spent the past three decades studying them well. Apparently they've got me figured out as well, because every time William H. Macy did anything in the movie, they looked at me. Um. Hey, I wouldn't tell crazy bikers to break my legs. Um. Really.

I covered The Oscars in other posts, but yes, we watched them. All day.

Nan took The Puppy for walkies on Monday, and it's admirable to see how well we managed to train The Puppy on our own, that she didn't drag her mother up the street face-first. Nan's good with crazy dogs, though. Our six-foot-tall Pookie bear only walked on a leash without attacking dobermans for her. This walk was part of a plan to get some excercise to go with the diet. It then rained, snowed, or was freezing the rest of the week. Not cool, nature.

I wasn't crazy about the '70s week performances on American Idol Tuesday and Wednesday, but by god when the results were in on Thursday and they kicked off Alexandréa Lushington, I was pissed. Only because they kept a few who sucked. But there's no use blowing my top over it. Here. Again. I think I waved my arms in befuddledment enough on Thursday. Could it be I'm getting attached to the contestants again? I can already name five. Oh dear.

Last night we had more snow, and I got it into my head to pay back all our great neighbors by shovelling the snow all the way up to the corner. Of course, because it was me, you know it was midnight. I didn't tell anyone where I was going, but in my defense I was wandering around the house with a snow shovel and a vest and no one asked me why. Also, it rained after I shovelled and then the sun came out and melted what was left by the time everyone was waking up. Go me, I cleared up ALL the snow! Sure.

I think spring is finally heading our way, though, I haven't slept in three days. Well, I haven't slept until it's time to get up. That's the way that works. Someday, I'll write during one of those bouts of insomnia and it'll be like the old days. But not today. Today I'm sane enough to know it really wouldn't be as funny as I think it would be.

The Weakend Reviews.

Week 7. 7?! It's only 7 weeks into this year?

This is turning into, "Movies. I has them." But when it's cold and damp and you can't speak, there's nothing much else to do but write next to the flicker of the televsion. I cracked 60,000 words in my epic novel that I began during NaNoWriMo. Yeah, that's right, I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days, and it has taken me another 80-odd (emphasis on odd) nights to add another measly 10,000. I wish I could say they're really good words, but I just don't know.

As you already know, on the weekends we watch movies, and last weekend we watched Michael Clayton. Being I'm a fan of corruption-outing movies, I loved it.

When the movie was over, we checked out cable and found The Odd Couple: Together Again, where Oscar had the same throat surgery Jack Klugman had, and...and I sound like Oscar. WTH?! I mean, I knew I always loved Oscar (strange, isn't it, that although I'm like Felix in every way, Oscar was my man), but that's going too far. Once I was done laughing at that (if I didn't laugh I'd go mad), I sat there waiting for that classic Odd Couple fabulousness, but the movie was very much like fanfic, and not my fanfic, I can tell you.

During the week, I work on my comic while Nan also works on her writing and Mum watches the reality shows. American Idol finally got to the final 24 contestants, and I haven't bonded with any of them yet, so I'm not sure how I feel about this season. I can't understand why everyone had to sing '60s songs, just to be told they didn't sound "current." It reminded me of my piano lessons, where I was supposed to play a song and make it sound original, but by god just try changing the key of Mary Had A Little Lamb and everyone's head caught fire.

Mum had her Unna Boot changed again. Now all I hear is the cash register sound from the beginning of that Pink Floyd song and I want to slap random strangers. I take this as a sign that Mum's leg is feeling better. I wouldn't slap nurses and doctors around, you know. No. They have scalpels and orderlies that pile up on people who try that.

There was that eclipse, which I totally got to enjoy because the weather was great, and then there was the snowstorm that dropped seven more inches of snow than we were told to expect. Do you know how much more baking I had to do for all that extra snow? No? Snowflakes eat cake like a hundred rabid Tazmanian Devils. For real.

I spent a lot of this week lamenting that I couldn't talk, like when my niece turned one and I couldn't get on a phone and be all, "Hey, happy birthday!" because I'd give the kid long-lasting nightmares.

When X-Files isn't on all night, we have to find other things to watch. Meteorites! was a movie we actually turned off because we couldn't take the toxic levels of stereotypical teen angst vs. harried parents. Plus a meteorite hit a house and the cop who went to investigate it asked if they maybe were running a meth lab in their basement to show that he was a transplant from the rough and tumble city and knew little of life in perfectfamilyville.

My aunt's birthday and my mum's birthday followed my niece's birthday one day after the other, and that's a whole lot of happy birthday I only got to wheeze pathetically. I made a bunch of cards that read like a drunken LOLCat for my Mum, and because my aunt is away, I get to plot her extravaganza of dozens of flaming Ioan Gruffudd candles sticking out of a Ioan Gruffudd cake. Not for real, though, I could get arrested for a thing like that.

Later today, I am going to attempt to restore my voice by doing the same daft thing I did that caused it to go away in the first place: celebrate stuff. Last time it was that my dog wasn't going to poop herself to death, this time it's that my mum turns 33. Yay mum! She's going to be younger than me soon.

Week 7. 7?! It's only 7 weeks into this year?

Oh Elizabeth, I'm-a Comin'.

I realize that saying is lost on many people who A) never watched TV in the '70s, '80s, and even now on Nick At Nite, for crying out loud! Or B) never watched TV. But it makes perfect sense to me, because I am delirious with the sickness.

See, I invented my own dance for the Sanford & Son theme back before my first allergic reaction to penicillin, but after then, from the age of 3-ish and on, I was a mean, bitter person.

However, when I have a high fever, oh man am I fun! I am more fun than I am when I've had a drink (sleeping) or after allergy drugs (crying on the bathroom floor clutching scissors and Epsom Salt).

Like earlier, we were watching the figure skating, and there was a skater being fondled in the stands, and when he saw himself onscreen, he was all, "Blasted crumbs! Must brush all these off!" Then later they did a spot with him and he had 190 pulse and all and they were worried about him, and I was like, "HAHA, stay away from those girls in the stands!"

You see?

I could go on, but the children, they might blush. And enjoy it. HAHA

I'm gonna go take some some aspirin. Oh man, if only the dog's anti-biotics wouldn't kill me. HAHA. I kid, I kid.

Oh Elizabeth, I'm-a Comin'.