Trivial Tuesday

ABC has announced recently that there is going to be an interactive game called Lost Experience based on the hit TV show. Before crash landing in the middle on Isla Dharma, Hurley was a drug dealer. At least, Jorge Garcia was.

Garcia guest starred as a drug dealer in an episode of what comedy from the creator of Seinfeld?

You know the rules. Answer and win bragging rights.

Update: Congratulations to Ms. Q, who knew that Jorge Garcia had shown up on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Movie Mayhem

Sorry, I can't think of a more interesting title today.

Part I: The Phantom

We watched the 2005 version of The Phantom of the Opera on TV recently. While most of the issues from our viewing have already been discussed, I wanted to talk about it some here as well. Is wonderful that the man in the mask decides to do the right thing (sort of) when someone shows him pity for one of the very few times in his life, but the guy is a sociopath and there's really no getting around that. He extorts money, stalks, kidnaps and murders. Among his lesser offenses are that he takes credit for the accomplishments of others. He is a teacher, but Christine is the one actually singing. However, if you listen to some of the lyrics, it's clear he doesn't believe she's really all that great except for his teachings (He refers to her success as "my triumph" and in another place claims "it's me they hear."). Of course, the most heinous of his crimes is that he was teaching and encouraging someone to sing opera. I can get past some of this. I can get past that it was a musical and that they sang random lines that weren't part of a song and probably should have just been spoken. I can get past the fact that I often felt like I was watching a really long Meatloaf video. The thing that really bothered me is that we were supposed to overlook the horrible things he did because he could sing. Wait, he's a good singer, so we give him a free pass for murdering someone? I thought we agreed only to do that with former football players and TV stars.

Part II: Kalamazoo?

We went to see a movie recently (well, a couple of weeks ago anyway) that was written by people from Kalamazoo and was filmed here in town. The movie, Kalamazoo (IMDB, Official Site), may not have been the greatest movie I've ever seen, but it was pretty enjoyable. It dealt with three women who come back into town for their 10 year reunion and have to deal with all of the issues around that. Sure, I'd probably choose Grosse Pointe Blank if I wanted a high school reunion movie based in Michigan, but this had things GPB didn't. Sweetwater's Donut Mill. Harding's Markets. Food Dance Cafe (which happens to be probably my favorite place to eat in town). Blossom. No, really. Blossom. Ok fine, Mayim Bialik. It was lighthearted and fun, while stressing the importance of self-acceptance...and highlighting the inability of some people to move beyond high school hierarchies. It was nice to see places you are familiar with on the big screen and really nice to get to support aspiring film makers from the area.

Until later...

Even More Useless Than Usual

Would you like some random thoughts that aren't really long enough to be an entire post on their own? Here they are anyway.

It's Spring and everything's blooming. It's a nice time of year, but it did bring up something I've always been curious about. I've never really understood the purpose of the Bradford Pear tree. Sure, it's pretty when it blooms, but it's a pear tree that never actually produces any pears. As if that weren't enough, it is quite possibly one of the foulest smelling plants I can think of. It smells bad enough that if it's stench were to cause people to vomit, it might actually improve the smell. So why would anyone choose to plant this tree instead of other attractive yet not sickening flowering trees?

Whenever I check and empty my spam folder in Gmail, I often wonder if I'm the only person who is so amused that the webclips bar that usually scrolls through news stories displays Spam recipes instead. Is there another food that is so universally maligned as Spam? Sure, people don't like Brussel Sprouts, but we don't use them as a new term for other things we hate. Maybe I'll start a campaign to do something like that. Junk mail will be onion, because just like when you ask for no onions on a burger you think you are off all the mailing lists but there's always that last one or two you can't get rid of. Unwelcome guests could easily be called fish, since Ben Franklin made that comparison long ago, but I'd rather come up with something new. That last guest that will never leave even though you've been trying to hint that you are going to bed, we'll call him cabbage because like the smell he just lingers and won't go away. The boyfriend or girlfriend that you try to get rid of that keeps coming back? Garlic, 'cause it also keeps coming back for a long time. Ok, this isn't nearly as amusing as I thought it would be. Time to move on.

I heard this morning on the news that Vanna White was getting a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Have we gotten to the point where the only thing needed to qualify for a star is to stand around and occasionally flip over a letter? Actually, it's not even that anymore. She hasn't had to flip over letters in at least a decade, because they introduced the new board. Now she walks past and touches each letter as if she's suffering from a severe compulsion to count them all. If this is where we are now, what's it going to be like ten years from now? Will we give a star to anyone who's ever been on a reality TV show? How about people who are famous for being famous? Paris Hilton doesn't have a star yet does she?

Speaking of the celebutante, every time I see an ad for Hilton Hotels I wonder: Do the employees of the chain look up to her as some sort of hero or do they resent her every time they see her in the news? I just have this image of them all hating her because they came to the conclusion that her press coverage is inversely proportional to the value of their retirement fund.

We came home the other day after a really long day, so we just threw ourselves down in front of the TV and watched some old episodes of Family Feud on GSN. It often amazes me to see how just plain dumb (sorry, there's just no nicer way to put it) some of the answers given by contestants are. This episode had some really bad answers. My favorite was when they asked a family "Specifically what things make a woman look masculine?" After a couple of guesses like large muscles and the way she dresses, one member of the family said "Her appearance." Really? Ya think? So her appearance has to do with how she looks? Never would have guessed that. After it was explained that the answer wasn't specific enough since it was really just restating the question, the person gave another incorrect answer and we moved on. Two people later we struggled for an answer again. Suddenly, a light bulb came on over the contestant's head, "Umm....her appearance?"

We went to dinner with some friends a few weekends ago at a chain restaurant that has come up with an interesting solution to having multiple parties waiting for tables. Rather than ask for your name or give you a coaster sized beeper that vibrates and lights up when your table is ready, they give you a card with the name of a celebrity and some trivia about him/her. For example, we were Bruce Willis. When our table was ready, they called for Bruce Willis and we handed them the card they had given us. I'm not sure if it is any better than any other system, but it does lead to some interesting conversation, like the following exchange.

Hostess: Vin Diesel, your table is ready.
Friend: I thought they said these were celebrities.
Me: Too late. I already trotted that joke out when they called for "Dean Cain, party of four".

Until later...

Playing 20 Questions and 20 More Questions

Ah, memes. Salvation of the uninspired blogger. I stole this one from Ms. Q of Whirled Peas. Sort of. She only did 20 instead of all 40, but we won't hold that against her. Anyway, here's the meme.

1) Who is the last person you high-fived? I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I high-fived someone. It's probably been a while.

2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive? Considering my inability to remain quiet, my tendency toward clumsiness and a few million other factors, the answer is probably yes, for about 5 minutes.

3) Do you sleep with the TV on? Only if I fall asleep in the recliner.

4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton? I started to say yes, but not in a long time. Then I remembered that if we buy chocolate milk, it might not ever see a glass.

5) Have you ever won a spelling bee? I couldn't win a spelling bee if I were the only contestant.

6) Have you ever been stung by a bee? Once, about ten or fifteen years ago. Or maybe it wasn't a bee, but a wasp. It was some sort of stinging thing that ran into me right as I walked out the door. It stung me on the side of the head.

7) How fast can you type? Interesting question. Type with a keyboard and free use of the backspace key or on a typewriter with no corrections allowed and deductions for typos? On a computer where I can backspace and correct all I want. Reasonably fast, but not exactly blazing. The other way...well, let's just say I once took a typing test in high school and ended up with negative words per minute.

8) Are you afraid of the dark? Dark? Not really. The unknown, heights, failure? Yeah.

9) What color are your eyes? Green

10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in? Do I look like I grew up in the fifties?

11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower? Whenever I want to hide and read, don't feel good, am sore or just feel like it.

12) Do you knock on wood? Only if it is a door I want someone to answer.

13) Do you floss daily? If you are my dentist I do.

14) What happened to question #14? Nothing, it's right here.

15) Can you hula hoop? I can't even hu-

16) Are you good at keeping secrets? Like I'd tell you.

17) What do you want for Christmas? I can't come up with an answer to this question when someone asks me at Christmastime. I have no idea how to answer this in April other than to say, my two front teeth. (Stupid Chipmunks corrupting my brain.)

18) Do you know the Muffin Man? Cue Shrek flashback in 3, 2, 1...Not my gumdrop buttons.

19) Do you talk in your sleep? How would I know? I'm sleeping.

20) Who wrote the book of love? I guess that depends on what you mean by love. Since just about everyone who has done this has answered with a reference to the song, I'll venture a guess that it might be Masters and Johnson. (It's a joke, people.)

21) Have you ever flown a kite? Yes, but not for many, many years.

22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes? No, but if I get too stressed I pluck hair from the crown of my head or from my chin. Trichotillomania: fun for the whole family.

23) Do you consider yourself successful? Sometimes, when I'm not busy obsessing over being a failure.

24) How many people are on your contact list of your cell? Wait, does the pizza place count as one person or do have to count all the employees too?

25) Have you ever asked for a pony? No. It sounds like too much responsibility. Besides, I have a car.

26) Plans for tomorrow? Let's see...tomorrow is Thursday, so I'll be working.

27) Can you juggle? Almost as well as I hula hoop.

28) Missing someone now? Who isn't?

29) When was the last time you told someone I Love You? Probably the last time I walked out the door to my house, if not since then.

30) And truly meant it? I find this question kind of insulting. I wouldn't have said it otherwise.

31) How often do you drink? Several times every day. If you don't you'll die of thirst. You can't live without water, you know.

32) How are you feeling today? Stressed, tired, and I have a bit of a sore throat now that I think about it. Thanks for asking. Wait, I was probably just supposed to say "Fine" like everyone expects when they ask that.

33) What do you say too much? I never shut up. The real question is what don't I say too much.

34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? Please, my halo was practically glued on. (That was a no, by the way.)

35) What are you looking forward to? Now, do I go for the cheap joke and say "Question 40" or actually answer this one? Decisions, decisions. Nope, laziness wins and my final answer is Question 40.

36) Have you ever crawled through a window? I don't think so, and if I haven't done it in the past, I'm certainly not going to do it now.

37) Have you ever eaten dog food? No, and I'm rather proud of that fact.

38) Can you handle the truth? I can handle it as long as you admit that you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.

39) Do you like green eggs and ham? I don't care if it's from a book, St. Patrick's Day won't get you off the hook. Meat and eggs aren't green in color, nor blue nor orange nor any other.

40) Any cool scars? Hmm...I have scars from having my gall bladder removed and from having my knee repaired. I don't know if they qualify as "cool" or not, they never tended to hang out with the really cool crowd.

Trivial Tuesday

There's plenty of M:I:III hype right now. We've got Tom Cruise on every talk show imaginable. Katie Holmes is about to give birth to his thetan love child. Tom's planning to eat the placenta and umbilical cord right there in the delivery room (No, really. I can't make this stuff up. Look here.) J.J. Abrams is directing the movie and has at least three shows on TV right now (Lost, Alias and What About Brian). While Abrams has directed episodes of his various TV shows including directing MI3 castmember Keri Russel in his first TV series, Felicity, he has not directed a feature film before. He has however, written films in the past. In fact, back in the early 1990's when he was still being credited as Jeffrey Abrams, he wrote the screenplay for a sappy drama starring Harrison Ford.

What was that movie, if you can remember?

Play by the rules and impress us all with your knowledge.

Congrats to Invisible Lizard who was close enough to Regarding Henry to win this week's bragging rights.

Sad

Aurora's story has been discussed and talked about in multiple blogs, so I'll not recap here. Details can be found here at the update posted by her sister.

I wish I had a more fitting tribute, that I knew what to say. I wish I knew how to make things better, to take the pain away. I don't. All I know is that there is a void here in the blogging world, and that void cannot possibly compare to the one in lives of every family member, every friend that she had. She brought joy to everyone, even those of us who never met her in person, and she will be greatly missed. I know of no better tribute than that.

To the rest of you out there: Whether you pray or just think about this as you go through your day, remember this family that has lost someone they love. Take care of yourselves. Wear your seatbelts.

Trivial Tuesday

Since the subject of Superman has recently been brought up on this blog and I really don't have the energy to think too hard for tonight's question, I'll stick with that subject.

Richard Donner directed the 1978 Superman starring Gene Hackman and Christopher Reeve. This was followed in 1980 by Superman II, but something wasn't quite right about Lex Luthor. What happened to make Lex not quite the same in Superman II?

No Time for Blogging Dr. Jones

I figure if they can reference Temple of Doom on last night's Simpsons episode, I can too.

I'm sorry I'm not updating much, but I haven't had too much time recently. I've read other blogs and thought that I should comment on that when I have time to write something intelligent, but then I never have time to go back. I'm not sure why I'd want to start making my comments intelligent now, since I never have before.

I enjoy listening to Matisyahu. I don't know how many of you are familiar with him or not, but I bought his album, "Youth," recently and have been playing it a lot since then. Besides, how often do you get to hear music from a Hasidic Jewish reggae artist?

I'm guessing that the person writing this headline either has no proof reading skills or was approximately twelve years old.

There we a few comments on last week's Trivial Tuesday about X3, the departure of Singer and changing expectations. My thoughts on the subject: I would really much rather have Singer helming X3 than Ratner. Singer has shown he has the ability to take these characters and make them people you care about. Ratner has...made the two Rush Hour movies. Characters in X3: I'm not so sure about Angel either, but I guess we'll have to see what they do with him. Then again, I could do without Storm. She has just never been a character I really liked. I have to admit that I'm one of the people who would like to see Gambit in the X movies. I know, I know. A lot of people hate him, but I think he's someone who translates well to the big screen and brings an interesting personality to the mix. Speaking of the mix of personalities, this brings me to the biggest reason I'm disappointed Singer left: X3 takes the ability to balance all the different personalities and not make any one part too large. Singer did that well-even better in the second film than the first. He left to do Superman. I'm sure I'll go see it, but I just can't be excited about a Superman movie. He's too one-dimensional and too close to invulnerable. The movie revolves around one guy instead of a group, and he's too flat of a character to carry everything. I guess we'll see what they do with it, but even Donner's Superman had some of these problems. Excited, nervous, it doesn't matter. I'll be going to see both the Big Blue Boy Scout and X3 as soon as I can when they come out.

Alright, that's all you're getting today folks...

Trivial Tuesday

A new episode of House is on tonight, and since I don't have too many question ideas, I'll use that as my inspiration.

The executive producer of House, Bryan Singer, is best known as a movie director. This summer he has the long, long, long rumored adn oft-declared dead Superman Returns in theaters. He first hit it big with The Usual Suspects, then directed the first two X-Men movies. There is another movie that is often forgotten that Singer directed between The Usual Suspects and X-Men. What is this overlooked film?

Congrats to Serfx who didn't overlook Apt Pupil.

I Have No Witty Title

Ok, this is the point where I admit to you that I've been watching The Next Food Network Star. Some people like American Idol, I happen to like this show. In case you haven't seen it and have no idea what it is, just think of AI only with hosting a cooking show instead of singing. The contestants have to prepare dishes on and off camera, explain what they are doing and go through various challenges. When it gets down to the last few (4, I think), the audience gets to start voting. Really quickly, let's run through the contestants who were remaining before this week's show.

Reggie: This guy is a happy, goofy, rather rotund fellow, and I like that about him. After all, you know the saying, "never trust a skinny cook." He has great energy and really can connect with the audience. He seems to be having problems dealing with the time constraints of working on a show, but has been progressively getting better.

Nate: Bald ex-model who loves showing off his classical culinary training almost as much as he loves himself. He knows exactly what he's doing when he's cooking, but he makes me want to be sick. Last week, when he was criticized for being nasty to a person who he thought was interviewing him on live TV, he agreed with them and gave the most horrific fake smile I have ever seen. Besides, why would the Food Network need an annoyingly arrogant, condescending chef? They already have Sara Moulton.

Carissa: She seems to think that she is the greatest thing to happen to cooking since fire. Fortunately, when she stops doing interviews and starts doing cooking segments, she turns her personality around and manages to be energetic and friendly. Now if she could just get the hang of preparing for cooking on set rather than in a normal kitchen she could turn in dishes that are actually cooked, and she'd have a chance to do pretty well.

Guy: He has a couple problems, the biggest of which is that he tends to speak almost entirely in jargon. Actually, this is really the only problem. The frosted hair and always wearing shorts are just his personality and they work for him. He has a lot of energy, he has a lot of personality and his dishes look great. If he tones down the jargon and slows down just enough to make himself easy for a home cook to follow, this competition is his.

Andy: The stuff he makes looks great. He seems like a really nice guy. The problem is that when he gets on camera, he has no personality. Zero. If he can find some sort of energy, he can end up being one of the last two or three. If not, he could be gone next week.

Evette: There was pretty much no doubt that she was going to be the one to go this week. Her food never looked good, she never actually showed much of the actual cooking or preparation in her segments. She also didn't take criticism well at all. She seemed to think that the reasons people critiqued anything she did was because they didn't "get" her style, when in fact she was lucky not to have been the first one eliminated. The thing that did keep her around for this long was that she has a great on-camera personality that helped counter some of the other shortcomings.

This week, the contestants were split into groups and had to perform a segment where they worked together to prepare two dishes. The two teams of men did pretty well, working together and sharing both camera time and duties. The team of two women, on the other hand, was awful. They didn't work well together, they talked about not liking some of the things they were making, and they ended up moving to opposite ends of their work area almost immediately as if it were two separate shows. The second challenge for the week had to do with multi-tasking. Each contestant was given 45 minutes to prepare for a 7-minute segment about preparing two appetizers (their own recipes, but selected by the judges). Pretty much everyone had a hard time with this, other than Guy, who never has a problem moving quickly. Nathan didn't even manage to plate his food and Evette decided that she didn't have enough time, so she would only do one. This unfortunately really defeats the purpose of trying to show that you can multi-task. In the end, Evette had to go, leaving only 5 contestants.

I enjoy this show, but I do have one final thought and that is about the host. Marc Summers. I really wish someone would call him out on a couple of things. First of all, you'd have a hard time convincing me hasn't had some serious plastic surgery. He looks like he's one nose job away from going the full Michael Jackson route. More importantly, let's not forget this is the dude from Double Dare. At some point during this show, someone needs to have the guts to tell him they'll take the physical challenge instead.

Until later...

The Homer Effect

I read this morning that the top movie in theaters this weekend was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. It took in an estimated $70.5 million. That's an awful lot of money. What I wonder is how much of that was due to people going to see it because they found out that the Simpsons teaser was attached.

Let me explain what I mean:

I saw the first Ice Age at the theater. It was amusing in an unimpressive kind of way. I was actually pretty surprised to find out that they were making a sequel, and didn't really care if I saw it. Sure, maybe it's worth picking up at Blockbuster or from Netflix, but I'm not going to rush out to the theater to see it. No one that I had talked to really seemed that excited about this film. Then on Friday it was released, and everything changed.

Suddenly, people were going to see it and there was this buzz about it all over the internet. The problem was that no one was talking about how great the movie itself was, instead they were talking about things that happened before it even started. As soon as people started coming back and saying, "Hey I went to see Ice Age and there was a trailer for the Simpsons movie," the word spread like a rhinovirus at preschool. People who didn't care about seeing the movie read this and started thinking about going. "Sure, I don't care about Ice Age, but going to the movies is fun even when the movie is only so-so and I have to see if this is really there." Then the second batch of reports started coming in, "I had to go see if it was there, and there really was a teaser for the Simpsons movie." Now there was confirmation, and there were people who were definitely going only because of the trailer.

Did I go see it? No, but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it. In fact, it really came down to just simply not having the time to go when the only reason was that I wanted to see this trailer. As it turns out, it was on during last night's new episode of the Simpsons, so there really wasn't much of a need to rush out.

In reality, this is a great example of viral/word of mouth advertising. The Simpsons has been on for 17 years and people have been waiting for and talking about a movie for at least the last ten. The movie was one of those projects that has been discussed, but that everyone assumes will never really happen. Then all of the sudden, there is a trailer in theaters advertising the release date of July, 2007. The word spread, people acted on it, and I guess we'll have to wait until next weekend's box office numbers to see how Ice Age does on it's own without the buzz surrounding the previews. Maybe the movie is good enough to keep people coming in, or maybe we'll find out that it received a sizeable bump from a clever advertising tie-in.

Until later...