Politics... and Pixar

-
A few items gleaned from Electoral-Vote.com... the first two not surprising but infuriating all the same:
  • A couple of douchebags at Fox "News" displayed some photographs that were so obviously altered in Photoshop as to be pathetic.
  • The non-news that McCain is now a clone of Bush and not a "maverick" despite any formerly semi-plausible claims to the contrary.
  • There's a new category of "equinox voters" (the spring-forwards and fall-backs) -- white-collar, more educated, information-economy types vs. blue-collar, less educated, manufacturing-economy types. This is interesting because these are demographics who once would have voted Republican and Democrat respectively, but are now tilting in exactly the opposite way.
After the July 4 parade in town tomorrow morning, we're off to New Jersey for some extended-family eating, children-mingling and poolside chatting. Speaking of children, after much nagging, we took the girls to see "Kung Fu Panda" last weekend. Capsule review: Don't bother. The funny thing is that I was genuinely excited to see posters or previews for upcoming sequels to "Madagascar" and "Ice Age." "Madagascar" was reasonably good, but the first "Ice Age" was a classic along the lines of "Toy Story," in my opinion. And "Ratatouille" was fabulous. I can now say I will see anything produced by Pixar. I wasn't interested in WALL*E until I read the glowing reviews assuing me it wasn't some sort of mindless "Tranformers" robot epic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Entertainments II

-
1. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, which I'd never even heard of until a couple of years ago. Because of the title similarity, I guess I assumed it would be something like Cold Mountain, but actually it's more like Oscar Wilde meets Wuthering Heights. A phrase that sticks with me is the characterization of one of the characters as a "trying female." Such a useful description. 2. Jagged Little Pill , the Alanis Morissette album from several years ago that I recently rediscovered thanks to my iPod, which I've been listening to on my commute, since there's only so much NPR you can take at rush hour without getting bored and/or depressed. Lots of cool songs in addition to the familiar singles. That woman has a way with words. I can't help but wonder how many different men she's trashing, how people manage to careen from love to hate, and about the success of her future relationships given her apparently poor track record (and the potential intimidati
Read more

Beaky and spiny

-
Image
Yes, it's been a while. But today... today I have found something so inspirational that I can't help but share it with the world: long-beaked echidnas , beautifully described in The New York Times as "plump, terrier-size creatures abristle with so many competing notes of crane, mole , pig, turtle, tribble, Babar and boot scrubber that if they didn’t exist, nobody would think to Photoshop them." AND! Did you know the males have a four-headed penis? Oo la la. *** Though it's been a while since her death, I must still mark the passing of Bea Arthur, who created the unforgettable character of Maude, a rather underappreciated sitcom, lost in the 70s shuffle of "All in the Family," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "M*A*S*H" et al. One reason the show was so good was the writing, tackling fraught social topics and taboos just as AITF had before it. Here's a tour de force one-woman episode where Maude sees her analyst . *** One of the funnies
Read more

The rogue wave is coming

-
Ben and I saw " Poseidon " on Wednesday. To absolutely no one's surprise, I have lots of Deep Thoughts about the remake as well as comparisons to the original ("that's heavy, Robin"). I know it's retarded, but I took a pass on the scifi-fantasy Hobbit / Dungeons and Dragons nerdliness earlier in life, and I'm not a computer programmer, so I have the right to geek out about SOMETHING. Too bad I don't put this much effort into something else, like say learning an instrument, in which case I'd be appearing nightly at Carnegie Hall or at least Great Woods. But this is gonna take a while, so brace yourself for a future sea o' type. Elsewhere in the news, work has turned into a deluge as I crank out actual web pages, among other side projects that have suddenly cropped up. This three-day weekend will be a wonderful thing. And no 9:15 a.m. soccer tomorrow -- woo hoo! Ben personally accompanied the surveyor and held the sticks this morning at our
Read more