WVU is out so my interest has waned. Got the bed put together, mapped out the garden plot and planned a preliminary course of action, and now am going to watch some crappy movies. I have Body of Lies, Twilight, and W. to watch.
*** Update ***
I would like to take a moment and inform all of the people on this blog and elsewhere in my life who recommended Twilight to me that at some point, when you least expect it, I will punch you in the neck.
Comrade Stuck
LSU is acting irresponsible. Talk about blowing up brackets if they pull it out on UNC>
Comrade Stuck
Absolutely first rate. But then I love movies about moral ambiguity. But it is very good IMO.
Litlebritdifrnt
What are you going to plant John? Please let us know.
Here is a link to a blog post I did about my little bit of heaven yesterday.
http://crittersbybritty.blogstream.com/
Mudge
A WVU grad?..Unexpected. Greetings from Morgantown. You are now the most noteworthy grad in my mind, given that Don Knotts is dead and Jerry West retired.
Wear the mantle proudly.
Comrade Stuck
I’ve gone out and stared at my garden space, and have wondered deeply why it hasn’t dug itself yet. Must be banker dirt.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck: NC has very pretty uniforms. The powder blue on crisp white is so attractive.
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
Thank you Laura, I feel much better about their chances hearing that.
Rolls eyes
Ash
@Laura W: The argyle accents are just so smart looking as well.
Laura W
@Ash: Yes! I wanted to comment on that as well but had not quite figured out the pattern or theme they have goin’ on there. Elegant, without being gaudy.
Stuck scoffs at his own peril.
J.D. Rhoades
Has Clark Kellogg been right about anything tonight? He’s like the Bill Kristol of basketball announcers.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Laura W:
Their black skin is especially attractive on a basketball player, yoo.
( shakes head )
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I just looked at my garden space and have wondered deeply why that dirty pile of snow hasn’t disappeared yet. The grass around it is so matted that it looks like the world’s largest hairball.
Ash
UGH LSU, just had to go and blow it, didn’t you?
Laura W
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat: Careful now…you’ll get a week’s suspension like our mutual friend, BOB.
Deb
Body of Lies is the best of the three and it’s questionable. W. was almost a lovefest and I’m too old for Twilight. Plus, I saw the trailer so many times I couldn’t sit thru the movie. With all the adult problems I have it’s hard to get worked up by teenage angst.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Laura W:
Bite me.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Comrade Stuck:
That is the glory of raised beds, they don’t need much digging, just pull out the winter weeds, clear the leaves, and you can plonk stuff right down into them without turning them over. Because they are never walked upon and downtrodden (so to speak) the soil stays nice and loose with little or no effort (on my part that is the worms do most of the work). Mine are four by eight, which is the ideal width for working, and the best part is you get to sit on the edge while you weed, no kneeling and bending.
Laura W
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat: Maybe a little later. I just had some Eat Smart Tres Bean Dip and Fritos and am feeling a bit bloated.
Purdue sure had some fugly uniforms on tonight.
rreay
Skip Twilight and find Let the Right One In. It’s also about a teenage vampire moving in next door, but it’s so good that it’s impossible to explain just how good it is.
Comrade Stuck
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Raised Beds are actually what I have too, that and several large barrel containers for the mator’s. I guess my growing up largely on a farm, makes it sacrilege to not turn the soil over. But this year, with your experience provided, I will take the plunge and just de weed and replant. I will miss the labor (cough cough) but will sacrifice.
Litlebritdifrnt
Well he pled guilty and I didn’t even know about it, I am assuming at this point that folks didn’t tell me cause they didn’t want me there (cause I would have killed the mother fucker). BTW Zander was my husband’s grandson in case anyone didn’t know (and therefore my step grandson). We never met him. So goes the way of dysfunctional families. Hope he rots in prison.
http://www.jdnews.com/news/wright_62648___article.html/murder_jacksonville.html
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Laura W:
Yeah, thanks for the tip, but it was a figure of speech, not a dietary suggestion.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Comrade Stuck:
I am really excited about my potato tower, I love fresh potatoes (they are so much better than store bought ones) but because of the raised beds I have never had the room to justify them, however I read about this tower/barrell idea and thought "I can do that" I already had some taters that were sprouting that I then saved to use as seed taters and just built myself a tower from chicken wire that I had laying around, I covered the taters with compost and potting soil that I had laying around in various pots (hence the empty pots in the photo) and was delighted to see that the taters were sprouting. I will continue adding various layers of compost and potting mix (from lots of other containers I have hanging around) until the tower is full. I hear people also do this with old tires, they just keep adding tires until the tower is the desired height and then let the taters do their thing. The glory of the chicken wire thing is that you can just unhook it at the end of the year and let all the potting mix etc., spill out along with the taters, well that is the plan. We shall have to see how it works.
Laura W
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat: oooooohh! Never mind.
I am a bit thicker than usual because I am now #50 out of #52 in the BJ Tourney, which means I am superior only to the two below me WHO DID NOT EVEN MAKE PICKS AFTER REGISTERING.
That takes some doin’, you know, to un-excel at that magnitude.
Even POTUS has overtaken me.
I’m gonna have to rethink my selection strategy for 2010, clearly.
Litlebritdifrnt
I am really hoping Duke wins, my boss is Duke alumni, and my entire wellbeing for the next week depends on how they do. Pray for me.
J. Michael Neal
Fuck. With Princeton and St. Lawrence tying in the ECAC third place game, there’s no way for the Gophers to get into the NCAA tournament. Miami and Ohio State are going to get the last two spots, which is aggravating. We finished higher in our conference, played a harder non-conference schedule, and didn’t lose in the opening week of the conference tournaments.
Guess I’m rooting for Michigan and Duluth now.
JenJen
Purdue game was better than I thought it would be. And I find myself in the
uncomfortablefilthy position of rooting for Dook d/t Balloon Brackets.J. Michael Neal
Duluth up 1-0 in the WCHA title game. I dislike Denver (can’t say I hate them; that’s reserved for St. Cloud and North Dakota), and it’d be nice to see someone win out of the play-in game for the first time.
mellowjohn
john,
you really should have hooked up with a school having no athletic prowess whatsoever. then you wouldn’t care.
john kierig
b.s.ed.–northern illinois university, 1969
m.a. special ed–northeastern illinois university, 2008
p.s. that said, go duke.
Comrade Stuck
@Litlebritdifrnt:
that potato tower thing sounds kind of cool, but I am leery of "special" plants advertised after buying a giant tomato plant (10 feet high) thru the mail. It did grow like a giant weed with lots of leaves, but almost no mator’s.
This year, I’m planting almost all poll green beans and some green onions. The beans have the best yield and can freeze for eating thru winter, plus I love em. I put out some two year asparagus last year that may actually produce seed heads to eat this year.
And I have to surround everything with tall layered chicken wire because my Deer friends believe the garden is for them. They will stand around and look at me like wtf is it with the wire. I love em, but they can eat grass.:)
Ash
@J. Michael Neal: You’re talking about college hockey? How un-American.
As a Boston U alum though, it’s been a very nice year.
Andrew
Body of Lies, Twilight, and W.?
You’re an Arabist teenage girl nihilist?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Comrade Stuck:
Here’s a link to the potato tower idea (to buy) of course I am a cheap skate and made my own. I am a child of Blue Peter, I make everything with empty toilet roll tubes and egg cartons.
http://www.canby.com/benwalker/GardenTowers.htm
J. Michael Neal
@Ash: Thank god you guys had a good 44 seconds last night. BC is probably the only team I hate more than North Dakota.
Linkmeister
UCLA and Washington just blew up my hopes. I’m now 31 of 38 but down to #15 in my pool.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Comrade Stuck:
PS) We had a great kerfluffle on the gardening boards one year when they were selling those mutant tomato/potato plants (ie you got maters from the top and taters from the bottom you notice there were only ever drawings of said plant never a photograph) loads and loads of inexperienced gardeners were saying things like "I have little tomatoes growing on my potato plants, can I eat them?" You could almost hear the heads exploding of the experienced gardeners trying to type "NO THEY WILL KILL YOU" fast enough to catch said inexperienced gardener before they merrily went off and tried to eat said potato "fruit". I often wonder how many cases of poisoning those mutant plants caused by association until they took them off the market.
Note to the inexperienced, NEVER buy a plant that is illustrated with a drawing, until they have a photo of it categorize it with sea monkeys.
Corner Stone
Body of Lies is slightly above avg. The best part is early when Leo and his arab pal are running after being blown (exposed you f’ng pervs) and they call in tac air support. That’s just frakkin nasty. In the desert where exactly do you hide from a helicopter?
Other than that I have to say I loved the mentality from Crowe’s character. Just didn’t give an F and played badass hegemony boy with everyone and about everything.
Montysano
Sheeesh…. I was 13 of 16 after the first night and feeling pretty good. Now: 23 of 38, and tonight’s not looking good for me.
But I did enjoy Adam Waddell’s backflip dunk. Ah, to be young and invincible.
J. Michael Neal
2-0 Duluth. So long as Alex Stalock keeps his rabbit foot properly charged, they’re in good shape.
Michael D.
Card check sucks. Bonus clawback is good.
Oh, and card check sucks. Ask me why!
J. Michael Neal
3-0 Duluth. Good, fucking grief. Nothing like getting hot at the last minute.
Polish the Guillotines
Off-topic (if there’s such a thing in an open thread), but 4 Oakland cops got killed today.
This is hardcore and does not bode well. It’s got powder keg written all over it. Oakland’s been suffering with serious crime problems and a whole police force of amped up, pissed off cops is going to have a short fuse.
Add to it the recent BART Cop incident and you’ve got a recipe for a lot of bad shit going down.
I don’t remember anything like this happening for as long as I’ve been in the Bay Area.
D-Chance.
Just trying to figure out the logic of some rightie (and even a few leftie) blogs…
If there is no problem with AIG getting the bonuses, then why are these same folk riding Dodd’s nuts over them?
Fencedude
Dude, Twilight is famous across the INTARWEBS for being utter shit liked only by 12 year old girls and sex-starved middle aged women.
recusancy
Twilight? Are you a 12 year old girl??
mr. whipple
Got a ton of spinach, onions and lettuce planted this week.
Put in a lot of arugula, because I’m a liberal elitist.
Litlebritdifrnt
@mr. whipple:
It ain’t arugala its Rocket dammnit! LOL Speaking of which, I let my arugala (rocket) go to seed last year (cause it does that quite happily in NC heat) I then dutifully put the seeds in a small zip lock bag (as I did all my seeds) then I stupidly forgot to label them (well some of them anyway), so now the seeds that I THINK are rocket could end up being baby Audrey’s as far as I know, I am afraid to plant them.
Ash
I hate both Dook (yeah, I’m a 13 year old boy, leave me alone) and UNC, so let us hope they fail where UNC succeeded.
Comrade Stuck
though I dutifully picked Duke to win this game, I don’t care if it blows up my bracket. GO Longhorns!!!
Laura W
HOLY FUXX!
Is there anything more exciting than tonight’s games?
Who do I have to blame for my sudden fascination with something I never cared about in all of my life?
Bootlegger, Fuckhead…I’m glaring at you two!
Yay Gorganzola!
GO Duke!!
Comrade Stuck
I don’t believe anyone recommended Twilight on this blog, or thread. You likely went to it first cause I recommended Body of Lies, as later did others. Now that is faux outrage, If I ever seen it.
Litlebritdifrnt
Discussion between me and my boss any given day me "Duke did well" him "it’s not Duke it’s Dook" me "no it is not, your University was named after a Duke, therefore the pronunciation is Duke" him "We live in NC it is Dook" me "no it isn’t" ad infinitum for about 45 minutes by which time we have completely abandoned that subject and got on to the subject of the run on comma, and the whole tomayto, tomahto thing.
Mark S.
How was the vampire baseball game, John?
Litlebritdifrnt
Whew Duke advances, I am safe for a while.
Ash
Fuck me sideways, what an unsatisfying night. Tons of potential upsets that got nowhere.
Steeplejack
@Montysano: "He didn’t stick the landing." Priceless.
Laura W
@Ash: Seriously. I sat here for two hours and rooted my heart out and both of "my" teams won and I rocketed up from 50th place to a two-way tie for 49.
Maybe I’m not understanding this scoring thing. Pretty much I’m getting that no matter what my brackets hold by now, I’m fucked to tears into next year?
So to speak.
Litlebritdifrnt
I may actually watch Twilight cause I think in some tenuous way the Pattinson dude is related to me. Pattinson is a pretty rare name in the UK (compared to Patterson) so I figure this guy is my twenty third cousin twice removed or something. Will have to check with my other cousin Julie who knows these things.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Stuck:
Amen, bro’. I, for one, would have stalked out and loudly slammed the door.
Comrade Stuck
@Steeplejack:
I twittered the Faux Outrage Police and they want a word with this Cole character. Inspector McAngrypants said he’d send someone right over.
osmond
Lawd duke was about to give me an ulcer if they lost. I got alot of shit talking to do to some of my friends
Mike
Recently on DVD:
1. For pretty much flying under the radar, Role Models (Paul Rudd, Stifler) was surprisingly funny and good.
2. Rachel Getting Married was good.
bootlegger
JenJen has made a nice run up the table but we’ll end today pretty much the same as yesterday. Though one of my Final 4s has died from my kiss of death.
Since we’re talking about exotic planting techniques (love the tater tower) and dissin’ the phony mutant tomato plants, I highly recommend the upside-down tomato planting technique. Living in the woods sunlight is at a premium and I have a deck around most of the second story so last year I tried it and it was incredible. No staking, tying or chicken wire, the plant grows back "up" on itself and is actually very attractive. I hung one from deck last year, will do another two this year. Another advantage is almost zero pests, and absolute zero fungus and other soil pests. You can buy commercial versions but I made one from a plant hanger and a plastic pot with a hole cut in the bottom.
Mark S.
@Laura W:
You should get a ton of points if USC cruises into the finals.
bootlegger
@Laura W: If USC pulls off what you think they will do, you will ZOOM up the table. But picking Cal-State Northridge in the Final 4 will only get you a nice parting gift.
Laura W
@Steeplejack: I didn’t do anything on my project today but think about it. I’m ambivalent. Maybe I’ve not fully decided upon my choices. I’m conflicted. It’s a massive burden that weighs heavily.
Regardless, a carry over from last night’s party.
One of my top 5, if not top 3.
The original is better, but you know I’d usually rather watch the artist perform it than stare at the album cover.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Stuck: I hope it’s not Officer Pissenmoan. He’s kind of a tool.
Church Lady
I can’t tell you how much I hate, hate, hate the bonus points.
Laura W
@Mark S.:
@bootlegger:
Yikes! You mean you guys can SEE my picks? Now I’m doubly mortified.
The Northridge thing goes back to picking CA teams first, plus they had that horrible earthquake and all. It was a pity pick.
GO TROJANS!
(As stated in a previous thread, I wanted to go to USC in the worst way but it was forbidden due to the fact that the man footing the bill was a BIGOT.)
Comrade Stuck
@bootlegger:
Hey now. the Matadors of Cal State have purdy uniforms of black and red with soft whitish truffles. Laura is doin’ just fine thanky you very much.
JenJen's Bracket
@LauraW, @bootlegger:
I agree! Don’t be hatin’ my perfect day.
Church Lady
Ya’ll quit making fun of Laura. She just likes a man in a nice looking uniform. :-)
Steeplejack
@Comrade Stuck:
ZOMG! I just realized that if Cole has the DVD of Twilight to view tonight, then he, or someone in his entourage, must have deliberately purchased it today, because it just came out today. This is not something he can weasel out of with "Oh, it was on the coffee table at my sister’s house last week, and my 14-year-old niece said I would really, really, really love it."
This is a hot button with me because I have a cabal of 20-something women where I work who have drunk the Twilight Kool-Aid and immediately revert to their tween avatars whenever the subject comes up. And they bring up the subject a lot. [Shudder]
Church Lady
@Laura – Yes, you can see everybody’s picks. Just click on the group name and then click on anyone in the group’s name and you can see their entire bracket.
bootlegger
@Church Lady: Without them we’d all pick the favorites and we’d all have more correct picks. Someone could equal your number correct just by picking the top seeds.
Church Lady
@Steeplejack:
Last night at midnight, they had a Twilight event at our local Barnes & Noble. My son’s girlfriend dragged him to it. I don’t think he’s recovered yet.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck: eewwww!
They have a real dripping-blood-from-fangs-Vampira-Marilyn-Manson -Ann-Rice vibe gong on, don’t they? Creepy.
This is a very good Learning Experience for me. I am compiling a lot of data, variables, and cross pollinators.
By March of 2010, I plan to be the Nate Silver of March Madness.
(Unless he is already the Nate Silver of March Madness, in which case I will just hope to score higher than those who don’t pick at all.)
Church Lady
@bootlegger: Hey, I had a few upsets picked. Just not the really good ones, point wise, like Western Kentucky or Cleveland State. I mean, really, Cleveland State?????
dand
Go Nova! Crush scumbags at Duke!
Laura W
@Church Lady: (Thanks. I knew that. I was trying to tamp down my shame by making a joke. So far it’s really not a very effective strategy.)
And yes…there were a few young men who filled out their tank tops very nicely tonight. I meant to take names so I could watch for them next time they play. I’m sure I’ll recognize their
hot, sculpted, steamy, bulging armsfaces.Gus
Go Bulldogs! Since this isn’t the Gophers’ year, they’re my team.
bootlegger
@Church Lady: I know you did, I’m just pointing out the rationale for the seed-upset bonus. Ultimately, though, you still have to pick the right teams to go deep into the tournament.
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
In that case they are toast.
John Cole
@Steeplejack: BZZZZT. Wrong.
I was checking out the “best sellers” at Amazon and saw Quantum of Solace was out. I failed to note that these were pre-orders.
I had another errand to run, stopped at blockbuster, was disgusted to learn that Quantum was not yet released, but still wanted to watch some movies, saw Twilight and remembered people talking about it (and I know several people recommended it to me, I just can’t remember where) and then saw Body of Lies and W. and picked them up, too.
So far, the only one I liked was Body of Lies. I lasted about 9 minutes into Twilight, and W. is just too buffoonish.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck: Get it on. Bang a gong! Two typos in that post. Must be a new PR. I blame the madness of March. Plus the freakin’ site wouldn’t let me back in to edit.
I sorta like the "gong". Adds character.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Miss Darling, let go of the Sisyphean rock that you’re trying to push up that hill. Just tell me one Tracey Thorn song that you like. Any one. And take your time. I’m off for the rest of the weekend–until Tuesday, in fact. Life is good.
My carry-over from last night. Word, girl.
NonyNony
Someone recommended Twilight to you? They had to be punking you – somebody must have just won a bet.
I heard Twilight was worse than Van Helsing. I find this hard to believe, but I’m not so interested in finding out that I’d actually rent the movie. (I picked the book up off of a display at the local library after I heard about the movie and flipped through it – I think if I were a teenage girl I’d feel like my intelligence was being insulted. Terrible stuff.)
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
I love misspelled words that could stoke the imagination. IOW’s, looky all right to meh.
PaulW
You have only yourself to blame for watching Twilight. Guys have an instinctive aversion to any movie that has sparkling vampires in it, and *you’re* the one who didn’t listen to your instincts. I swear to G-d, SPARKLE MOTION VAMPIRES! (I only know this because as an ex-librarian I was warned well ahead of time)
Fencedude
Twilight’s popularity makes me weep for an entire generation of girls.
Also, if you want to scar yourself for life, go look up some spoilers for the fourth book. Specifically the birth scene.
Comrade Darkness
@Steeplejack: Amen, bro’. I, for one, would have stalked out and loudly slammed the door.
What’s this twilight thing?
My picks have succeeded in so much as flipping a coin should result in a 50% result. Whoo hoo!
It does, despite the use of abe lincoln to make my picks, make me care about games I would otherwise ignore. Odd that.
The Moar You Know
It’s a movie with a Mormon teenager as the MarySue and a vegetarian vampire that can go out on the daylight!
WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH A PREMISE LIKE THAT
It’s your own fault, Cole, for listening to anyone who would recommend it. At least now you’ll have a yardstick to measure people’s intelligence with.
Liked Twilight = idiot
Read the books and liked those = idiocy that forms its own singularity complete with event horizon
tom.a
Body of Lies is rather good, never saw W (I’ve had enough of all things George Bush) and the only redeeming aspect of Twilight is that Kristen Stewart ALWAYS looks stoned which is kind of entertaining.
Comrade Stuck
Hey now. Kate Beckinsdale + Black Leather Pants + Black and Red Corset + Sword = Thumbs up!
The other vampirettes weren’t half bad neither.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
P.S. Quite often I find that I like the music video more than a live performance. But that’s just me. Your mileage varies, of course. Anyway, Lisa brings it with the thunder, the lightning and the golf-ball-sized hail in this one. Although I like her look better in the video with Barry. (R.I.P. and blessed be his memory.)
Steeplejack
@Church Lady:
[Shudder!] Rub him down with Slim Jims and copies of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Stat!
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Here, I think. Maybe you should update your list of "I read them so you don’t have to" sites.
Laura W
@Steeplejack: I think my issue may be that most of the songs I like and link to were created before music videos were invented. Or are album cuts that never had dedicated videos. But I agree with you…if I can’t find a good live version or the slickly produced video, sometimes just the cut from the album is fine while I stare at the cover on youtube. It’s a case-by-case choice for me, wherein I weigh audio quality against visual impact because as you know, I TAKE MY MUSIC LINKS VERY SERIOUSLY.
I had never seen the duet with Barry White. That is really something to behold! He’s a trip when you just focus in on his utterances. Powerful.
I feel certain that if TattooSydney were here tonight, he’d be dancing all around the world to that song of Lisa’s.
I have no idea why we have never gotten into Bonnie Raitt in our exchanges. If I had to choose just one of her CDs to live with the rest of my life, it would be Road Tested (Shock. A concert double set.) Time for bed now…
(Edit: LOL on the Tiger Beat reference!!)
Steeplejack
@NonyNony:
I heard Twilight was worse than Van Helsing.
Dude! I still have nightmares about the automated crossbow that could fire like 20 rounds a second and Hugh Jackman still couldn’t hit shit with it. WTF?! That was some Hollywooden filmmakin’.
Christ, next you’ll have me flashing back to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Brr!
DaveInOz
And a totally unrelated item – to go into your next pet section
gwangung
So, Buffy (we’re not even getting to Faith) could probably stuff the whole megilla in her knapsack, crumple it into a ball yea wide and drop kick it off into the Hellmouth without breaking a sweat, right?
Wini
Big UMD fan from back in the day (early 80’s?), so I’m quite happy with the win tonight. (Gophers? meh. Lost interest several years ago, I think; I feel like I’m reverting to my roots)
Now, as for my BJ picks… I guess I have made some progress in moving up a whopping 4 spots (sorry Laura; you seem to have taken my position from earlier in the day)
AnneLaurie
… also (I’m told) gay men who dig Pattinson’s emo-boy schtick. Or, as someone (Wolcott?) put it, "Fourteen-year-old girls of all ages and genders". Once you find out that Stephanie Meyer is a nice Mormon mom (with no daughters), it’s a lot easier to understand how she could commit several thousand pages of typing in the voice of a teenage girl who is desperate to Lose It to a magical talented all-knowing deeply empathetic eternally youthful prince, even though she knows her ravishment will turn him into a terrifying slobbering monster who will tear bloodily into her frail mortal frame and subject her to unspeakable pain & horror, except fortunately he’s such a prince that he won’t Do That until he’s put a ring on her finger, so there. When I was attending an all-girl parochial high school thirty years ago, we were supposed to get that frisson from reading Jane Eyre, and I could never understand the appeal of Mr. Rochester either.
mr. whipple
Litlebritdifrnt:
baby audrey’s?
Comrade Stuck
Obama trying to do something about the outrageous bonus paying for failure and the wingnut blogs are screaming sockalism sandwiched in between their howls of outrage that Obama/Geithner let the bonuses remain.
They are absolutely bankrupt of intellectual honesty, in addition to being just crazy and wrong. Ok., they’ve always been bankrupt of intellectually honesty, but at least they kept the account open, just in case. No Mas.
Steeplejack
You totally nailed it. Awesome. "Hmm, how can we sublimate the messages of our sex-saturated society into ‘appropriate’ avenues without having to actually look at the messy reality . . ." Not to get too meta or anything.
Thoughtcrime
@rreay:
Absolutely agree! I saw this at the Parkway in Oakland, which is tragically closing after tomorrow: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/19/BANA16JPRB.DTL
Great memories of the Parkway, especially Thrilleville events like the annual William Shatner "Shatfests".
Evil Bender
You win the internet.
Fencedude
@AnneLaurie:
FOR THE FUCKING WIN
Comrade Nikolita
I read the synopsis of Twilight before it came out and decided it sucked. Everything I’ve read about why the movie’s concept sucks makes a lot of sense. Haven’t read the books, won’t see the movies, and will continue to ridicule the series.
burnspbesq
@mellowjohn:
Good day to be a Dookie.
Not only did men’s basketball win, we beat Carolina in baseball (completely unheard of), took care of Georgetown in men’s lacrosse, and Konrad Dudziak was the first Duke wrestler ever to advance to the championship match (which he lost in triple OT, alas).
Women’s basketball starts tomorrow. Also tomorrow, Becca Ward is a prohibitive favorite to become Duke’s first-ever NCAA champion in fencing.
Steeplejack
@DaveInOz: Awesome.
Johnny Pez
@tom.a: Agree. When it came out, I said that the thought of seeing W. was like having a dream where you’re being gang-raped by baboons, only to wake up and find that you really are being gang-raped by baboons.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack: Oops. My comment was in response to this:
@AnneLaurie
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Love Bonnie Raitt. (Good fingerpicking in your selection!) My second-favorite song. Couldn’t find a clip of "Everybody’s Crying Mercy."
Saw her in Mobile, AL, opening for B.B. King, way back in the day. Ecstasy.
Martin
John, consider that they only recommended Twilight because they thought you were a 13 year old girl.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
She was the opening act in one of the two or three best concerts I’ve ever seen, for Little Feat at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ on the last tour before Lowell George died.
J. Michael Neal
At least the baseball team is doing well. Really, really well for a northern team. Just finished sweeping Dallas Baptist (a much stronger program than you would think) and they took two of three last week at Texas Christian. Yeah, they blew two midweek games, but midweek ones aren’t as reflective of team quality, since you’re digging around in your mop up relievers for a starter. Handrin/Buske/Rosin looks like a quality weekend rotation. The offense is cooking with gas. Michael Kvasnicka (great Minnesota name, that) has himself a .462/.500/.762 line through 19 games.
J. Michael Neal
Fuck, yeah. The key part of that has nothing to do with compensation:
and:
The stuff about requiring transparency from hedge funds is good, too. Those three things absolutely hit the sweet spot of what I want. The only part it’s missing is treating CDS as insurance, though, if they are on the list of stuff that needs to be exchange traded, that’s a close second place.
The rest of you have been waiting for nationalization. This is what I’ve wanted.
BDeevDad
@Martin: Damn, took the gist of my comment. Twilight in a nutshell:
ellis
@AnneLaurie:
Brilliant. Seriously.
ellis
from cracked.com’s "if twilight were 10 times shorter and 100 times more honest":
KRISTEN STEWART
I want you to make me a vampire so that I can be with you, even if it means sacrificing my own life as a mortal.
ROBERT PATTINSON
So, the next generation of young women are currently flocking to see a female lead starring in a movie by a female director based on a bestselling book by a female author, and in this movie the main character wants to become completely submissive and self-sacrificing for a male.
KRISTEN STEWART
I love you. Put a baby in me.
ROBERT PATTINSON
At least the other three books can’t possibly be more misogynistic and depressing.
They ARE.
END
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
There is no way in the world that movie based on a book about vampires written by a devout Mormon would be any good. I’d wager any given episode of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer" is better than all the "Twilight" books combined. In a just world, Buffy would put her friend "Mr. Pointy" right through sparkly boy’s ribs and spare the world any future agony.
guest
have other people’s posts disappeared… or is it just me?
DrDave
My 15 year old daughter thinks Twilight is one of the greatest movies ever made and she loves the books the movie is based on.
That is everything you needed to know as a warning. Sorry you didn’t ask.
chopper
man, i wish i had a garden plot. this year i’m likely going to be growing crops in plastic bins on my friend’s back porch.
city life sucks sometimes.
guest
roughly transcribing, david corn on cspan:
back in the clinton years there was a debate wether to regulate things like credit default swaps. the CFTC (commodites future trading commission) wanted to. at that time, robert rubin and larry summers, who were serving the clinton administration, and alan greenspan and all the republicans, phil gramm … didn’t want to.
yet the line robert rubin has been giving out was that he didn’t understand how these derivatives worked. really? if rubin didn’t understand them, why did he oppose regulating them?
Cathyish
@Fencedude: I’ll have you know, mister, that this sex-starved middle-aged woman HATED Twilight. Vampire baseball? Really?
Thlayli
@mr. whipple:
baby audrey’s?
Yes, Baby Audrey.
Mark Gisleson
If you’re not willing to screen commenters based on age, you’ll just have to live with their movie recommendations. My nieces raved about Twilight too. Next Christmas I’m giving them a boxed set of Scientologist-produced DVDs.
Deborah
I have no desire to borrow my 12-year old daughter’s Twilight books, but I can’t get too het up about The Fate of Our Youth. I read Regency romances when that age, with exactly the same plot sans the sparkling, and wasn’t warped for life. Heck, the Heinlein (Podkayne gives up her plan to become a starship navigator because, while more qualified than most boys, she realizes no one will hire a mere girl. Instead, she’ll become a baby nurse and get to DATE the navigator and captain!!!!) I was reading at age 12 should have warped me a lot more. We survived; they will too.
Wini
@J. Michael Neal: Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear – it’s Gophers hockey that I’ve seemed to cool on over the last several years. Still an overall Gophers fan! And that’s great about the baseball team.
EL
Sorry, John but I spent several minutes chortling when I read this thread last night. The thought of you watching Twilight and realizing just what the movie was is quite funny.
Seanly
Dang, that must be bad. Van Helsing is the worst movie I have ever seen (when I wasn’t going in beforehand expecting something awful like Ghost Ship).
John, did you not see ads for Twilight?
Also, why aren’t you doing Netflix? Even with the El Cheapo one-at-a-time limit, I can still get a movie about when I want it. And you can also view "unlimited" movies online or via Xbox Live (though only a handful of 2nd tier titles are available for that). If you watch just 3 or 4 movies a month you more than make up the difference in renting.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq: Also love Little Feat.
Steeplejack
@Deborah:
No argument there. My father didn’t care what I was reading, as long as I was reading something. He felt that my taste would inevitably improve. For the same reason, I’m certainly not complaining about young girls reading the Twilight books. I just think it’s funny that Cole got blindsided by a wretchedly bad movie.
Marc with a C
Twilight is well-known amongst the more, shall we say, trollish denizens of the internet as being one of the worst pieces of crap ever to stalk the face of the earth.
A vegetarian vampire who can go out in daylight and sparkles like the sun protecting an independent, gorgeous, clumsy, oh-so-speshul Mary Sue (minus about 50 pounds) from a pack of OMG mean vampires who are decided more on the meatetarian side of the aisle.
Oh, and apparently there’s also a love triangle between those two twits and a teenage werewolf.
Stephen King said it best: “Both [J.K.] Rowling and [Stephanie] Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people… The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
hacienda
I dunno, JKR isn’t much of a writer either. Her imagination is pretty good, but her prose is horrid.
(Granted, this is coming from somebody who uses words like ‘dunno’ in her writing.)
And Twilight is misogynist crap. Forget the sparklies, or the baseball…it glamorizes women being hurt by their men and says it’s okay because the men are really, really sorry afterwards and just couldn’t help themselves. Gack.
protected static
To truly appreciate how weak some of Rowling’s writing is, one has to read her aloud… I didn’t have any strong feelings about her books until we started reading them to my son as bedtime reading. Now… bleah.
One could easily turn any of the Harry Potter books into a drinking game. Any time Rowling uses the phrase "Harry, Ron and Hermione," take a drink. Any time she varies the order of the three names, take two drinks. I’d add in a third rule – any time she doesn’t refer to the trio by name, finish your bottle – but those first two rules alone should have your liver begging for mercy long before the end of any of the books.
conumbdrum
Body of Lies? W? Fucking Twilight? This is why I switched to Netflix and stopped going to video stores… no more slouching up and down the aisles, glumly poring through rows and rows of Hollywood cash cow crap like this.
These days, at least eighty percent of the films I watch are foreign… and my classic-to-shit ratio is remarkably good. (I see about one bad film for every ten, tops.) The fact that even educated American filmgoers are far more familiar with the output of the Farrelly Brothers and M. Night Shagnasty, films based on television shows, anything featuring Meg Ryan or Adam Sandler and the Scary Movie series than the work of such cinematic visionaries as Yasujiro Ozu, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson and Abbas Kiarostami is cause for collective shame. Sure, there’s a need and purpose for mindless entertainment, but you don’t need to rent it – just switch on the goddamn television, kick back and drink in the lowbrow.
Yes, I am a film snob. And if I can get just one of you good people to check out a heartrending masterpiece like Ozu’s Tokyo Story or guffaw through a comedy gem like Marion Monicelli’s Big Deal on Madonna Street… well, my time here will have been well spent.
Steeplejack
@conumbdrum:
You’re preaching to the choir. I think most Americans’ taste in movies is like the restaurant landscape in the 1950s: everyone raised on bland, meat-and-potatoes fare, and as for "foreign"–"Hey, I love Italian food," by which they meant pizza and spaghetti.
"Foreign movie" doesn’t automatically have to mean dour Bergmanesque twilight–not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I am regularly amazed at the resistance I get from some people when I suggest any foreign movie, or any movie so old that–heavens!–it might not be in color. Oh noes! There was one person I couldn’t get to even try taking a look at Amélie, which has got to be one of the most approachable, endearing movies ever. But, yes, it is different from the standard Hollywooden fare.
conumbdrum
Steeplejack:
I think much of the problem lies in moviegoers’ resistance to subtitles. Which is silly, really, unless your reading speed is ridiculously slow… in which case you should probably stick with Adam Sandler and Medea anyhow.
Funny thing about subtitles, though — after a few minutes, you really don’t even notice that they exist, as if the dialog really was in English. I’ve tried to explain that to the foreign-film resistant, but they think I’m nuts.
My younger brother is the biggest Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone fan imaginable… but I’ve never been able to get him to take in Kurosawa’s Yojimbo… which, after all, Leone copped nearly shot for shot for A Fistful of Dollars. Doesn’t want to have to read while he watches, y’know. Sigh.
Laura W
@Steeplejack:
Amelia, you say?
Steeplejack
@conumbdrum:
Yeah, subtitles can take a little getting used to, but they’re not that hard. Plus a lot of foreign movies now have an optional English soundtrack! I usually prefer the subtitles, but c’mon . . . I think it really is sort of an obdurate resistance to trying anything new and unfamiliar, as if you’re trying to convince a kid to eat something he’s never had before.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Excellent. All I’ve got it this.