babbling blue

And the City.

Yes, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I went and saw Sex and the City opening night. But the girls (by which I mean the boys) were going, so what the heck? I did watch the whole series, after all.

The crowd was about what you’d expect. A sea of women, many of them all gussied up for the big premiere… and handful of gay men… and a smattering of pussy-whipped straight men, dragged there by their wives or girlfriends. Interestingly, it would have been a good place for a single straight guy to meet single straight gals. There were girls everywhere, and no competition to speak of.

The movie itself was decent. I’d say about 7 out of 10, which was slightly better than I was expecting. The plot was certainly no masterpiece. It was often predictable and heavy-handed (downright anvil-icious, I’d say). But it fit with the series and it was generally fun to watch. True to form, Carrie Bradshaw continues to make bad decisions (and wear hideous outfits) and sabotage her own happiness. But if that wasn’t the case, where would the drama come from?

Am I a Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Miranda? Well Samantha is my favorite, but I certainly can’t claim to be anything like her. I’m more of a combination of all of them (probably more Miranda and Carrie than Samantha and Charlotte though) but I think that’s the case for most people. Let’s face it, the girls are not well-rounded characters, they are all extremes. But who would have watched a show about four well-rounded New York women?

So I just started watching American Gladiators this season (after watching the original series for years growing up). In this week’s episode (the 3rd) the fourth set of contestants competed. One of them was old Brick Reilly (below).

From NBC.com:

Brick Reilly is a 27-year-old tree climber from Springfield, New Jersey. He was born deaf and has always deemed athletics an important escape from the realities of life. Though Reilly recently had a cochlear implant which gave him the ability to hear, he never used his disability as an excuse in his life. He works as a mentor for deaf children in the New Jersey area.

He has already fought a congenital problem and come out on top. For that reason (and well. . . because he’s sexy) I was rooting for him. And he did not disappoint. He swung across Vertigo like he was a monkey, yanked Toa from Tilt and flew through Skytrack, becoming the first person to win that relatively new event.

Brick went into the Eliminator with a 12.5 second head start against his opponent. He breezed up the rope ladder and across the tightrope and zipped over on the hand bike like he uses one every day. Then he went down the rolling pin and dislocated his shoulder. . . and climbed the Pyramid and popped his motherfucking shoulder back into joint when he grabbed the zip line! You da fuckin’ man, Brick! He struggled a bit with the Travelator but came out victorious in the end.

You’ve got a fan in me, Brick. Go all the way!

… that all managers of white collar workers get 1 day off a week, so their employees get one day free of interruptions for stupid questions, requests for status reports, and the need to stop whatever they are working on to do this thing the manager has had on their desk for three weeks which is now due tomorrow.

… that any man 5′6″ or under be required to use the shorty urinals if there are any.

… that all Illinois lawmakers and the Governor be forced to commute on the CTA every day for a week.

… that charging a dollar or more for a bottle of filtered tap water be considered price gouging.

… that the former smoking sections in restaurants be converted into family sections; anyone who has children with them will have to sit in those sections.

… that we “fall back” a day later so I can actually get an extra hour of sleep when I need it.

… that if Americans actually got enough sleep we wouldn’t be so dependent on coffee & Coke.

… that you should play World of Warcraft.

… that you really shouldn’t buy Britney’s album.

Another day, another death. Actually it looks like this one happened a few days ago, but it didn’t come to my attention until today.

Author Robert Jordan (aka James Oliver Rigney, Jr.–I can see why he used the nom de plume) passed away this week at the age of 58. The cause of death was a rare blood disease.

This is significant because Jordan was working on a finishing up his massive epic fantasy series, “The Wheel of Time“. And I do mean massive and epic. I read all 11 of his books in the series (and these are some big books) to date. Even book 10, which was by most accounts–including mine–a real stinker. And now I may never know how the story ends! Will Rand Al’Thor win the last battle? Well he probably will, but I want to see how. . . and I want answers to the many unanswered questions. Will Mat and Thom go get Moiraine? Will. . . OK I’m not going off on a tangent on those; they could be a whole blog post on their own.

This was my worst fear (regarding these novels, not in life)–that something would happen to prevent Jordan from finishing. Back in my undergrad days when I started the series, we used to joke about it (before Jordan’s diagnosis. . . we weren’t heartless bastards). And it has come true! Damn! I am sad of course, but also mad that he didn’t finish sooner. He dragged the series out longer than it needed to be (I’m looking at you, book 10!). And now tens of thousands of fans are left hanging. I heard a rumor that he finished the end of the last book, but not the beginning. If that’s true I hope someone can fill out the missing part and release the book. I mean, he must have at least left behind some notes on what he was planning, right? Right? Please? Argh!

I could wax poetic in eulogizing RJ, but instead I’m just going to tug on my braid, smooth my skirt and scowl. Men!

So Family Guy Live! was awesome! It was hilarious and very interesting at the same time. Putting faces to all the voices was fun. Even though I consider myself a fan of the show, I’ve never been a superfan and I didn’t realize that some of the voices were people I knew from other things. Like Alex Borstein, the voice of Lois, was on MADTV and played the famous Ms. Swan. The voice of Meg is Mila Kunis, Jackie from “That 70’s Show” (who incidentally seems like she really is a bit of a ditz). All the main characters were there, except Patrick Warburton (Puddy on “Seinfeld”) who voices Joe the wheel-chair bound cop. And of course we got the Seths: McFarlane and Green.

After they were all introduced, they read through an episode, complete with occasional asides and commentary. We also got several live musical numbers (”Shipoopi!”).
And then, for a real treat, we got a sneak peak at the upcoming “Star Wars” themed season premiere. It looks like it’s going to be great. They poke fun yet maintain a proper reverence. They also stepped up the animation for the space ship scenes. I can’t wait to see the whole thing this coming Sunday!

They wrapped up with a little Q&A, some of which were requests to do certain famous parts of the show.

As it turns out, Alex Borstein has a potty mouth. She likes to say “fuck”, and she sang a song (as Lois) than involved her complaining “You never eat my pussy anymore.” Of course, there was a family with three kids right in the front row. She addressed the family several times, seeming slight apologetic, but not really. It was great!

I’ve been a loyal viewer of ‘24‘ since it first aired. I’ve been with it through good times and not-so-good times. But I’m about ready to give up. This season has just been too predictable, melodramatic and repetitive. It’s not just stretching the bounds of reality, it’s obliterating them.

I’ve invested this much time, so I’ll see it through to the end of the season. But I think the show has had its run and should be retired.

So long, 24, and thanks for the memories.

What could work, if done right, is a ‘24? movie. Obviously it wouldn’t take 24 hours, but it could be done in “real time”. This has been done before, but it’s been awhile and I think it could still be cool. Again, it would have to be done right and I’m not sure the people currently working on the show have it in them.

I saw the movie “Zodiac“–starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, Jr–this weekend. Interestingly (to me), when I typed “zodiac” into Google, Google helpfully listed nearby theaters showing the movie and upcoming showtimes and 5 of the top 10 links (including the top 2) were for the movie; 3 more were about the Zodiac killer, which is the subject of the movie. Only 2 of the top 10 links were for anything else, one for the astrological Zodiac and one for Zodiac watches. I wonder how different that list would have been a year ago.

Anyway, enough techno-geekerific musings on Google rankings. I thought the movie was good. I didn’t know much about it going in and was dragged there fearing a gory slasher film (I don’t like scary movies) but I was pleasantly surprised that it was more a of a mystery/crime drama. Sure we saw the killings, but you could generally see those coming. There wasn’t really any excessive gore. But there was still a good amount of suspense. The movie was fairly long (158 minutes), and I would like to say it flew by but that wasn’t really the case. It didn’t drag and I was never bored, but I was definitely aware that it was a long movie. Despite the length, there were still a couple things that were never really adequately explained. I guess the story was complicated enough that even with 2 hours and 38 minutes to work with, they couldn’t squeeze everything in.

If you’re like me before seeing the movie (you may not be, as I tend to be rather out of touch. . . perhaps because I never watch commercials), you didn’t know that “Zodiac” was based on a true story and adapted from two books by Robert Greysmith (who was played by Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie). The Zodiac was a serial killer in California in the late 60’s.

I was intrigued enough that I may check out the Robert Greysmith books, “Zodiac” and “Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America’s Most Elusive Serial Killer”. Since the movie didn’t quite put all the pieces together, I’d like to know what I missed. Another interesting google-bit. . . the books didn’t show up at all in the first 10 links. I guess no one reads any more.

Anyway, I recommend seeing “Zodiac”. I think it’s nearing the end of its run, since I was a little late to the game here, but watching it on DVD should be just fine.

One of the neat things about RSS syndication (technically that’s redundant, but more clear in my mind) is that it’s not perfect. A post on S.c0tt A-dam’s blog (The Di|ber+ Blog) showed up in my feed reader, but when I tried to get to the actual post to read comments, it was gone. It is now nowhere to be seen. Even though the original post was removed, the RSS feed was still available.

I can only assume he was pressured in some way to take it down, but I found it amusing so I snagged it from the feed and am posting it here in full. . . at least until I get sued to take it down.

Updated 2/22/07: According to Scott, he took down the post due to all the nasty comments it was generating on his blog. People are so stupid.
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Tim Hardaway

Are you following the story of ex-NBA player Tim Hardaway’s public statement that he hates gay people? This is good news for gays. When Tim Hardaway decides to hate you, it’s time to celebrate. I want Tim Hardaway to hate me too. This post should help.

Years ago, I used to watch Tim Hardaway play for my local team, the Golden State Warriors. He single-handedly ruined my love of basketball. As a point guard, he had two noteworthy skills:

1. A great crossover dribble
2. The ability to do something stupid in the last 10 seconds to lose almost every close game.

Tim never seemed to notice that when he took the last shot in a tight game, his team almost always lost. Now, just to be clear – there’s nothing wrong with being a poor clutch shooter, unless you also happen to be the starting point guard, and it never occurs to you that passing to another player might work.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that Hardaway ruined my love of basketball. That’s literally true. I didn’t mind rooting for a team with a bad record, but I couldn’t cheer for stupidity. I gave up on the Warriors and never regained my interest.

So when Hardaway said on the radio that he hates gay people, I think he was surprised that it caused a problem. He’s not good at pattern recognition. I’ll bet he spent the first week of the shit storm just shaking his head and muttering, “I didn’t see THAT coming.”

And did I mention that Hardaway was scheduled to do some public appearances for the NBA during All-Star week in Las Vegas? Apparently it never occurred to him that announcing a deep hatred for a portion of your fan base and advertisers would be bad for business. More muttering, “I didn’t see THAT coming.”

But my favorite part of the story is that Hardaway apparently never noticed that he’s African-American. Or maybe he never realized that enthusiastically promoting bigotry isn’t a good idea if you’re a member of a persecuted minority. Either way, it’s not the sort of thing that gets you into Mensa.

The great irony of this story is that millions of people probably had the same first reaction to his announced hatred of gays: “He’s probably gay.” I doubt there’s any statistical validity to the notion that the biggest gay-haters in the world are closeted gays themselves. But lots of people believe it. So Tim Hardaway managed to insult gays while simultaneously planting the suggestion in millions of minds that he might be one.

Does he hate me yet?

Posted on: Tue, Feb 20 2007 9:52 AM

Happy 2007, all. I survived my vacation, though there was a time when I doubted that I would. More on that in a future post, if I can get myself to put it down in words. The vacation was relaxing, and a lot of fun. The beaches were beautiful, the weather was lovely and so were some of the boys. Photos will be posted soon, I hope. I’ll put a link on here when they’re available.

I am not enjoying being back at work (and school). Or in this shitty-ass Chicago weather. It was apparently mild here while I was gone, then it decided to get cold upon my return. Figures.

I’ll close this brief post with further proof of something we already knew. Mariah Carey (Scary) is crazy:

“Literally, I’ll have 20 humidifiers around my bed,” Carey told V Magazine. “It’s like sleeping in a steam room. … The ceiling is pitched so the water can’t fall on my head, and it all drips down to the side, and the TV is behind glass.”
She went on to say that it’s tough to avoid promoting promiscuity through her songs and her image because she’s so naturally hot.

Ohhhhhkay.

(Excerpted from the Chicago RedEye, January 9th, page 36)

Just two short days after the world was rocked by word of the Britney/K-Fed breakup there is even more big news for us.

First, Reese Witherspoon has filed for divorce from Ryan Phillippe. The filing cites the usual “irreconcilable differences”. Their separation was announced a couple weeks ago, so this isn’t a huge shocker. But I’m sure there were people assuming they’d work it out. Looks like it wasn’t meant to be. Ryan, if you need to be comforted don’t hesitate to call me!

Second–and this one did surprise me–Apple is breaking it off with the Mac Guy. You know, the one from the “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC.” commercials. It seems that the PC Guy is sticking around though. The Mac Guy (whose real name is Justin Long) is now out of a job. Poor guy. I’m sure I can find an opening for him.

What other celebrity breakups are on the way?