Monday, July 31, 2006

cell phone, you and i are both adults, i think we both know that text message wasn't meant to call someone a "plut".
and guy in the bookstore, i'm sorry that we can't tell you exactly where the book you want is, but come on, this is a used bookstore, you don't need to mutter under your breath that the service here is "very disappointing." although on his behalf, my sitting here text messaging people is pretty egregious.
also, i would just like to note the frequency with which my mind is boggled. if you want to be like me, go out and buy Boggle, you won't regret it.
i stand by what i said in my last entry. that being said, today at work i was transcribing an interview for an upcoming episode of reading rainbow (or wherever i work), and i came across a girl named Urina. okay, if you are considering giving your child a name that sounds like anything that might be released by the body, i give you permission to buy that book. heck, i'll buy it for you. i get a fifty percent discount.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

FYI- my mom informed me today that there actually is a musical of Dirty Dancing in the works. while i'm happy to be proved right, i am also incredibly saddened that musical theater has reached this point.
right now i'm sitting at work (at a used bookstore called Heights Books) reading over a book about what names not to give your child. don't worry, i'm not pregnant, i'm just kind of obsessed with names. but i must say, i think the fact that someone took the time to write an entire book about names not to give people, and the fact that that book got published kind of boggles my mind. because what's the purpose of those other baby name books? so you can check on the name that you want to give your child, and be like "aw, it means 'handsome marauder' or 'beautiful exotic and precious stone'". but what do you do with this book? you look up the name you want, and then read the snooty comment this guy has written about what the name rhymes with, and then the name is ruined for you. and now that your child is nameless, what does this book helpfully provide you with? other names that you also shouldn't give your kid. Thanks, book.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

My friends and i had this idea! But our idea was a little better. what would prompt a person to spend large amounts of money to travel a short distance? obviously, if their pilot was dressed as amelia earhart and did the whole flight in character. how awesome would that be?
so, while perusing the magazines in my therapist's office (therapy: it works) i came across an item in entertainment magazine that said there is currently a remake of Adventures in Babysitting in the works! This boggled my mind, partially in a "why would you remake a perfectly good movie that is only 20 years old" way, and partially in a "omigod i can't wait to see how this going to turn out way". i know you're all still reeling from the crazy information bomb that i just dropped on you, but i hope you're ready for the next bit of info. I was looking for a link so that I could prove that i hadn't just made it up, and i came across this. What!? Not only are they remaking this movie, but they have cast none other than Raven-Simone to star in it. Yup, you heard right. That is soooo Raven.

Monday, July 24, 2006

you know what i'm surprised they haven't made into a musical, what with the rush of movie to musical adaptations over the past few years? Dirty Dancing. I was just thinking about it, and i'm not really saying that they should, or that it would be particularly good, but i feel like it fits perfectly whatever checklist those knuckledhead producers have been using. 1- extremely popular film with cult-like following, 2- lots of dance numbers, 3- flagrantly romantic couple that seems ready to sing each other's praises, 4- the line "nobody puts baby in a corner". find a part for harvey fierstein, and you've got a hit.
I never cease to be amused at spotting a mention of the exploits of sex columnist Amy Sohn. You see, before Amy Sohn was such a woman-about-town, she was my babysitter and also my hebrew school teacher. My hebrew school class even got a mention in her first novel, Run Catch Kiss. I'm proud to say that we were described as a class from hell, and she noted how much joy some of my good friends derived from finding the bad words within hebrew words, like bereSHIT. Yeah, I know its pretty stupid, but we were 11 years old. What we innocent fifth graders didn't know was at the same time that we were successfully irritating her to distraction, she was living a double life as a sex columnist chronicling her wild (although occasionally fictitious) exploits as a single in the city. I must say, I was shocked, SHOCKED to find that someone who had been an authority figure to me in my youth was capable of writing such provocative prose.
i also happen to know several other members of importance in Amy Sohn's life; namely, her brother Josh, a devilishly handsome lad who was my SAT tutor, and her husband, who frequented the used bookstore I work at. this entry was just to let all my readers know how cool i am.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

hey, the kid from the squid and the whale actually has curly hair! I promise, this is my last update about the squid and the whale. I just have this tendency to get very into (read: obsessed with) things, as anyone who's been forced to listen to the Daft Punk soundtrack or watch Reno 911 with me already knows.
i had a great weekend roadtripping to massachusetts to see a friend's play, with the exception of a wipeout while playing my first game of tackle football. some people may disagree, but i've learned that playing tackle football with a bunch of boys late at night in the rain while extremely drunk is a bad idea.

Friday, July 21, 2006

what did you do with your time in prison?

Thursday, July 20, 2006

day at work continues to be boring, so i'll continue to update. in honor of the fact that i have recently had to cut this from my repertoire of fascinating dinner party conversation topics due to its consistent failure to engage the interest of my conversation partners, i'm going to post the link to the harry potter spoof discovered by my friends and I a few months ago. All I can say is, if you don't enjoy watching the work of 5 awkward yet brilliant adolescents in a high school English class, then it's your loss.
but if you're a truly kindred spirit, (well then i'll be meeting up with you in PEI sometime real soon.) nah, but if you liked watching that, then maybe you'll enjoy the music video these kids made with extra footage from their spoof. okay, even i couldn't watch more than half of it, but you have to appreciate the fact that they made it.
wow, i hope these kids appreciate the inevitable fame and fortune that will come from my linking their work.
does anyone else feel like those American Apparel BFF girls are more than friends?
slow day at work, so i'll recount the things that impressed me most from the interview w/ Noah Baumbach on the Squid and the Whale DVD. If you haven't seen or did not obsessively love this movie, skip reading this entry. Anyway, unfortunately I thought that there were more flaws in the movie revealed from the interview than there were interesting themes elaborated. Or not flaws, but things that could have made the movie even better. Well I haven't finished watching it, but i'll go from what I saw.
First with the good. Baumbach talked about the role that brooklyn or specifically Park Slope played in the movie, and how Park Slope circa 1986, when the movie is set, differs from modern day Park Slope. I thought this was pretty interesting, because I had always sort of wondered why the movie needed to be set in the 80's, as the only references to the time period are passing cultural references that could easily be replaced (i'm sure Walt and Sophie could go see a different movie besides "Blue Velvet" with Walt's dad Bernard). but Baumbach explained that Park Slope in that time was not as happening or large as it is today, and that it had this specific feeling of being an island of a certain lifestyle in the middle of brooklyn. in a certain way, this lifestyle was similar to that in manhattan, but it had a certain "less than" quality that came from being outside of the city, and not being as successful or visible as manhattanites. at the same time, the people living there had a feeling that they were better than the other brooklynites around them, using their knowledge of high culture to show that they were somehow more worthy than their neighbors. If you've seen the movie, I think you can see how this applies especially to the characters of Walt and Bernard, their insecurities and their desire to be perceived in a certain way, especially intellectually, by the rest of the world.
Okay this is going to be really long if i keep going, so i'm just going to talk about one bad. actually, its not a bad, just something i thought could be better. in the interview, the interviewer, who knows Baumbach's real life dad, said that when Baumbach's dad would say lines like Bernard it was always with a touch of irony, of knowledge that he was being ridiculous. this may be one of those cases where Noah was just too close to it, and he didn't notice the doubled-edgeness of his dad's comments. the character of Bernard loses a lot because of this, ending up flatter and more of a villain than I'm sure the real man was. Not that it is not still a nuanced and complex role, but if we could have been shown a man who was a bit more charming and self-aware, I think we would have had a better sense of why Walt is so seduced by him. And the ego could definitely still stay.
most recent sad moment in my life- last night, i was sitting in my room watching the extra features on the squid and the whale after a fabulous 15 hours of unpaid work, when the power went out. just on my block, but i feel like that makes it even more annoying, like god had specifically picked us out of all the blocks to get screwed over. luckily my laptop still had 6 hours left of battery life, so after fruitlessly scouring the house for candles (a difficult task in the pitch black in an apartment that really isn't your own), i continued watching semitic stud Noah Baumbach explaining the brilliant study in adolescent development and parenting that is the squid in the whale. after a few minutes, i started to notice that i smelled garbage, and thought, "that garbage truck needs to realize that the streetlights aren't working on this block." but then i checked out my window, and there was no garbage truck. puzzled, i went back to the movie. after a few minutes i smelled it again, so i went to go see if i could find the source. on getting up from my couch, i stepped in something wet and thought, "darn, i must have knocked over my water." on going to pick up my water, i discovered that what i had actually spilled was an almost entirely full can of bud light that i had been using as an ashtray for about a month. shocked, i put it upright and began to feel around the carpet for the damage. it was pretty bad, so i went to feel the can and see how much beer/cigarette crap was left. i then realized that i hadn't put the can upright, but had actually put it upside down. hence, the entire contents of the beer/cigarette crap/probably some mold were all over my rug. i took a whiff, and let me tell you, that is the foulest smelling stuff in the world. i don't really feel like recounting the experience of trying to clean this up in the middle of a blackout, but i'll just say that my rug is still very wet and smelly.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

I saw them! We were all, who are these douchebags with a video camera following them around, are they from The Real World and if we make out with them will we be on the show? luckily, we went with our better instincts and kept pretty clear of them. Real World: Apartment Building in Coney Island would be a great season though, and i hope mtv is still considering it.

Monday, July 17, 2006

i went to the siren festival this saturday, and i know that every year i say i'm never going to go back again, but this time i really mean it. its fun to see all the hipsters gathered in a location generally filled with people who could not possibly be less image conscious, but i prefer coney island on a regular day. i have a friend who lives a few blocks from coney island, so we've spent many days cruising around the game vendors and food stands. i mean, i know my jealous desire to protect it from the hipsters' ironicization isn't exactly justified, as i'm a brooklyn heightser born and bred, and couldn't be less real brooklyn. but going to high school in midwood, i gained somewhat of a knowledge of the workings of "deep" brooklyn (how i refer to any neighborhood that isn't brooklyn heights, cobble hill, or park slope) and it has always seemed to me to be a sort of haven from manhattan's self-consciousness. brooklyn is that guy with a bit of mustard on the side of his mouth. sure, this quality can be a bit unpleasant, but it is also profoundly lovable.
sorry, that was a bit of a divergence from my original intention for this post, which was to bitch about how i find coney island to be a bad venue for a concert, and the fact that people kept walking by me in the middle of every song, making it impossible to enjoy any of the performances. but that's sort of boring anyway, so whatever.
also, sad moment in my life- my friends and i went to get some hot dogs at nathans, but on discovering that there were no tables left, settled our things on the cover of a garbage can. at that point, a bum walked over to us, said "you're eating on top of a garbage can? that's gross," then reached into the can and pulled out a cup, and began pouring his beer into it.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Guess what!? You can make m & m's with personalized messages on them. i am currently seeking suggestions for a theme party that will incorporate such m & m's.
another note about m & m's- if they are left open in a production box, mice will go into the box, make a mess, and leave droppings. if you are an intern, this means that you will have to clean it up.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

i thought of a great way to torture my children (i mean, if/when i have any)- i'm going to give them a fairly normal name, but wherever there should be an "r", i will substitute a "w". therefore, for the rest of Ewic or Chwistina's life, people will think they either have a speech impediment so that they can't say their "r"'s, or that they are speaking baby talk. this will become increasingly funny as they age.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

a happy ending to the computer story- after paying 300 dollars, i have gotten my ibook back in working condition, with all of its contents still intact. after thinking about it, i realized i didn't really need the new computer, and it was more important to get back my photos from college and papers and stuff. so there, and i hope it doesn't die again. or not soon at least.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

oh, the other thing i wanted to write about was that yesterday i caught a bit of a marathon of MTV's "Made," and as always, i find it fascinating. for those of you not familiar with "Made," a high school student chooses a goal that they would like to achieve (winning a beauty pageant, getting onto the cheerleading squad, getting a lead in the school play), and then MTV gives them an expert in that area to put them through an extensive training program that will help them to achieve this goal. the reason that the show is fascinating is because these kids are truly the loser-est losers of high school. they are often so awkward or unattractive that it is painful to watch them, especially as it may bring to mind the awkward or unattractive moments that we all experienced in high school. and they usually pick goals that they think will help them to become part of the "cool" group, or at least that will make them "normal" teenagers. this show captures moments like a tomboyish girl feeling so uncomfortable when her coach makes her go in to school wearing a dress and makeup that she breaks into tears, or a girl getting flat-out rejected by her popular crush, who turns her down with a smurk. but the show would not be watchable if it were entirely like this, or if all of the coaches' advice were so misguided. the show is surprisingly encouraging and nurturing of these outsider kids, and in addition to trying to help the kids reach their goals, the coaches usually give them a lot of talks about being comfortable with who they are and finding ways to be themselves. and so "Made" ends up being both a heartbreaking and a heartwarming portrayal of probably the worst time in the lives of people who are outsiders or "different" in some way. when you've been out of high school for a while, you really forget how much this kind of stuff can matter to someone, and its interesting to revisit that time in your life. ultimately, though, you just want to tell the kids to stick it out, that it gets better after high school.
Phew! A lot has happened since my last post, which is why its been a little while. The big thing was, I moved into my new summer apartment. This was really exciting for me, as I've been really starting to feel like a shlub for staying in my house and watching tv all day, and i've been wishing i had a place that i could invite friends over, or should i do any dating, a place to bring someone over to without a super awkward meeting of the 'rents. so i was really excited to find a place near Park Slope, where most of my friends live, at a reasonable price, and with some roomies with whom i think i'll get along great. the place has already been christened with a housewarming party (luckily the new roomies are away for my first weekend living there), which was carried out without any major mishaps except a small amount of water spilled on some bills left on the table. anyway, i'm hoping that this new place will up the coolness quotient of my summer, which has not been bad so far, but lacked a certain spark that i had hoped for since i'll be out of the country for the next year or possibly more.