Now, from Billbert...

Need

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:24:19 -0800

For some reason, Bryan had grown into the penchant of wearing nice, crisp button-down shirts to work. He'd somehow gotten even leaner. It made Jonathan get a forlorn look in his eye.

He messaged Caroline. "I need to get a boyfriend.

"What are you gonna do about it? 8^) "

On the other side of the room, Jonathan could hear Caroline snort, giggle, and begin clicking keys. "I have to get ME a boyfriend first."

Jonathan sighed. "It's SOOOO Friday."

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"Gayage," the new term you should use

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:27:05 -0700

I want to add a new term to the Urban Dictionary, but nobody uses this term yet -- I'm pretty sure I coined it -- so here's the trial balloon:

Gayage

Noun

A definite or indefinite, countable or uncountable group, amount or number of homosexual, lesbian or queer people. Used as more tongue-in-cheek (laughing WITH us) in intent than pejorative (laughing AT us).

It's like 'luggage,' 'coverage' or 'footage.' Examples:

• The closing of the queer bookstore was, unfortunately, ignored by the local gayage.

• His sculpted chest was being drooled over by the local gayage.

• You'd better tell the gayage we're out of vodka AND cranberry juice.

Related to these Urban Dictionary tags: gay, homosexual, peerage, groupage, coverage, amount

This is probably going to go to the same circular file as the other term I coined, obviously with a lot of sense of Variety and its slanguage, when I was the News Director for WECB radio in college and doing lots of entertainment news. You'll find it funnier if I use it in an example:

• Spokesfolks for Sandra Bullock said she wouldn't comment.

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Twitter Quick Guide: @mentions vs. Direct Messages, Etc.

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:42:00 -0700

My dad said recently, "I still really don't know how to use Twitter." So, I wrote this for him, and have since added to it.

It will be obvious which of these things I haven't had confirmed yet and merely have a theory about.

And yes, I'm sure this is not the first Twitter How-To For Newbies.

For more detail, visit Twitter's own help center at http://support.twitter.com/.

By all means, comment, email or DM @billbert if you see something wrong in it.

JARGON

Twitter as a noun is the service.

I suppose you could still Twitter, or have Twittered, as a verb.

It's more popular to Tweet as a verb.

An individual message is Tweet as a noun.

There is no Twitter-related adjective, except perhaps Twitter-like.

I use capitalized Tweet and lowercase tweet interchangeably, even though I should just pick one and stick with it.

TYPES OF TWEETS

Whenever you send a message to Twitter by texting short code 40404 on your cell phone, or posting a message from twitter.com or a Twitter client (like hootsuite.com), that is a Tweet. Samples follow below.

I need to get a haircut.

Everyone following you gets this message.

You can try to pinpoint a certain user with an @. Beginning the message with the @username might -- I'm not 100% sure -- in some circumstances only push the message to them. Including the @username in a message merely shows up on their mentions.

@billbert Where should I get a haircut?

If @billbert is signed up to get SMS notifications from the sender, he will get an SMS for this message, but others signed up to get SMS notifications from the sender might not. I think. Others can still see it in their 'Following' timeline.

Where should I get a haircut? @billbert, @providencekevin, @scottieinc, any ideas?

Any/all of the rules in the previous paragraph are ignored, but if @billbert, @providencekevin or @scottieinc are monitoring their mentions (there are add-on apps that will email you if anybody mentions you) then they'll know you were talking about them even if they're not following you.

Could somebody please turn down the volume on @GrammarGirl?

Sounds like you're getting snarky, and if she's paying attention (watching her mentions), she'll know.

Now then. If I mention you in a Tweet, any of my followers may get curious -- including bots that have no tact or civility -- and try to start following you.

That's why I might send you "Direct Messages," or DMs.

RETWEETING AND QUOTES

Perhaps one user likes what another user said or linked to. Rather than stealing the entire Tweet and presenting it as their own, one Re-Tweets.

RT @billbert: For all those interested in watching the Bristol Parade, you can watch it live right now here http://j.mp/lGPpoo courtesy of @FullChannel

I'm re-tweeting the link @billbert already had.

Note that there are two ways to do a simple retweet. On the Twitter website and on certain apps, when you click to retweet, it will link your retweet to the original. Then, in your timeline, the avatar picture of the person you're retweeting will show up. Furthermore, the 140-character length is not a problem with this method.

However, that method does not let you specifically respond to or edit the original Tweet.

When's kickoff? RT @billbert: Heading to Foxboro for a Patriots game.

Instead of a simple @mention, I'm also telling all of MY followers what I'm responding to.

Some people have started using " " quotes in retweets.

Too much Old Bay seasoning. "@billbert: Why is my swordfish bright orange?"

See above.

Then, some people might START the tweet with the re-tweet and have to separate their response from the original item. Some people use double slashes, //, and the like.

@billbert: Heading to Foxboro for a New England Revolution game. // I'll bring my cleats!

See above.

I also like using "via" or "from" if I'd like to rewrite a Tweet or make it shorter.

Watch the Bristol Parade right now http://j.mp/lGPpoo via @billbert

I'm stealing the link from @billbert.

TIMELINES, CLOSED AND OPEN

I have two accounts; one kind of for work and one mostly for personal items. The work one is not protected, or I like to say "open," and the personal one is protected, or "closed."

Your general tweets and the mentions you make all go to your timeline. If your timeline is open, anyone can find your page and see what you are saying. NONE OF YOUR DIRECT MESSAGES GO TO YOUR MAIN, OPEN TIMELINE AT ANY TIME; they are private.

If your timeline is closed, those who are following you can still see general tweets and mentions. Those who are NOT following you (those who have not been granted permission) shouldn't.

HOWEVER, I get the feeling that if you mention someone else, they'll still be able to see you talking about them regardless of your timeline's privacy settings. They WON'T see a Direct Message mentioning them at any time.

COMMANDS

Twitter can also take commands through tweets, which are different buttons on the web site. If you were texting to 40404, you could send a message to be broadcast, or tell Twitter to start following someone.

follow billbert

Starts your account following @billbert.

There are several different commands for following, unfollowing, and not getting SMSes for a username. See them all here.

d username Message

Sends a direct message to @username. In this case you do NOT need to use @. (The usage of @ evolved as people started using Twitter.)

d billbert What time are you meeting me for a haircut?

Sends the message ONLY to billbert. This applies if you're texting to 40404, or sending it through twitter.com or a different client.

FINALLY, A NOTE ABOUT TWITTER vs. EMAIL/BLOGGING

After I saw way too many abbreviations in various messages, I Tweeted about the following. This is purely my preference and opinion, and applies to both regular Tweets and direct messages.

Treat Twitter as a bulletin board, or like you would SMS text messages. It's for VERY short messages. Yes, you may send multiple messages in succession for a longer, strung-out thought, but be judicious in doing this.

Please do not use Twitter as a substitute for email. Keep it to ONE thought or concept per tweet.

Please don't abbreviate every word longer than 4 letters. It gts vy confusg & annyg 4 me, & surely 4 U 2.

If you're abbreviating lots, covering 5 different subjects, OrJammingWordsTogetherLikeAHugeAcronym, PLEASE use email instead. Or, post to Facebook or your blog and then Tweet a link to the entry.

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Things That Happen To Other People: In Need Of

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:26:16 -0700

It's too long to tweet, so:

Can somebody come over and lock me in a closet with either a typewriter or a computer that only has a word processor and make me write some extended fiction for a change instead of 20-second stories about POLICE SAY THE SUSPECT WAS... ...?

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He's just this guy, you know?

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:44:00 -0700

We are all extremely multi-faceted, I believe. Even the most shallow, bland, lacking-in-common-sense, uneducated or bad-at-thinking types of people -- have scores of experience, different motives, wants and needs. The minor villain in one person's life has got to be a major hero in another's.

And then there are some of us who are a little more unusual or skewed in our outlook, reactions, or products. We may think we're hard to describe, explain, or pigeonhole.

And that, frankly, brings us down to "He's just this guy, you know?"

JACK

Clicking around Apple Mail showed me that Jack Fleischer's blog had been updated, and I hadn't read a few entries. He's trying to make a living as a writer in Los Angeles.

I read the most recent entries, and started looking around his other info pages. In the spirit of "you always find it in the last place you look," I eventually got to his basic About page, and he'd invoked Douglas Adams at the end of the summary paragraph:

In short, "I'm just this guy, you know?"

I started to leave a comment, and be snarky and say 'You should link to Wikipedia about Zaphod Beeblebrox,' but then I started looking up what he should link to in hopes of including it -- and then realized he wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the first to think of adopting the phrase.

ZAPHOD

As a writer, how do you make things happen on the page? You need an engine: something for the characters to do. A journey or quest. Maybe your engine is not a goal, but someone stirring things up.

Zaphod Beeblebrox -- as written by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series, television series, series of novels, film, computer game, and Zarquon knows what else -- is not really stirring things up, but he's nevertheless a poke in the ribs to the story's engine all the same.

What he definitely is, is hard to describe. Visually, he's startling. He has two heads, and a third arm.

His attitude (generally, as portrayed in most cases) could be termed as very stereotypically L.A., coming from one who has never worked or lived there: almost anxiously trying to look relaxed while being behind and trying to get ahead of everyone else.

An early scene in the Hitchhiker's radio series has Zaphod trying to out-cool his cousin, Ford Prefect (whose name, Americans, might as well be Ford Taurus, Ford Focus, or Harry LeSabre). Zaphod has punched the Infinite Improbability Drive button on the Starship Heart of Gold, and something not totally impossible, but extremely unlikely and improbable happens: Zaphod's own cousin is saved from Earth's total destruction (with some joker in a bathrobe and pajamas, if you please, answering to the name of Arthur Dent) and ends up on the very ship Zaphod's just stolen from the intergalactic government.

Before they meet, at least one of them, probably Zaphod, realizes just how gargantuan of a coincidence this is, and realizes he's got to win at playing it cool.

You know, just because.

Losing your head about something that big would just be ...well, not as cool as playing it cool would be.

Zaphod is irresponsible, selfish, an egomaniac and narcissist, devious. Sam Rockwell played him in the movie as more of a sh*t-kicker in cowboy boots. How else do you become the president of the galaxy?

Since he is so famous, journalists talk about what he does, and that leads them to talk to other people about what he does. Investigating turns up the fact he has a private brain-care specialist. Not a shrink or psychiatrist, oh, no. That would be too bourgeois.

The man, whose name is Gag Halfrunt (pronounced, unless I miss my guess, as HAL-front, not HALF-runt), is interviewed on a radio program within the radio program, starting with a question like Has Zaphod Gone Crazy?

"Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?"

...Well, what does that mean?

Zaphod kind of does what he wants, he is a very smooth talker to seduce women, seduce officials, take low-level security guard robots under his spell, and is one of the guys you wish you could have the life or the cojones of.

WIL

While Wil Wheaton doesn't strike me as wild as Zaphod Beeblebrox, we tend to describe ourselves in different terms than those around us. Wil Wheaton's Twitter bio invokes the Zaphod catchphrase, just as Jack did:

I'm just this guy, you know?

The persona I see most often these days of him is in guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory, playing an evil nemesis version of himself to get on the nerves of Jim Parsons's Sheldon Cooper. My own trying-to-be-hilarious constant admittance that I want to have Jim Parsons's babies does not affect my opinion of Wil Wheaton at any time, of course.

Wil has gotten relatively far along with his own writing career -- namely, in books. Writing what you know is what everyone is encouraged to do, and as Wil blogged, he got material for memoirs.

Nathan Rabin, The Onion's A.V. Club:

"Other celebrities have kept web-logs, but few have matched the candor and self-deprecating wit of Wheaton's posts to wilwheaton.net, which explore subject matter both universal (parenting, losing a relative) and not-so-universal (getting cut from the latest Star Trek movie)."

Some of this material derived from his experience becoming a niche icon: the teenager on syndicated 80's sci-fi television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wesley Crusher was the son of single starship mom, chief medical officer Dr. Beverly Crusher. He wanted to be a Starfleet officer, and had a major 'in' since, dude, your mom's totally top shipboard brass. But, teenagers doing what teenagers do, he tended to get into trouble and be annoying for a chunk of the viewership.

Where do we share complaints? With friends. If we don't have friends in person, then this being the digital age, we find friends through computers. Huge forums dedicated to the hatred of the character of Wesley sprang up on the earliest versions of the Internet.

But that wasn't what got Wil Wheaton off TNG. His first sightings of what stardom does kinda did, as he told Rabin later in the article.

I can't find any reference to his going to college, but he went and worked on the Video Toaster, programming and selling. And then acting school for some years to perfect his craft there. So, these days he's an actor, and a writer, and this and that, and while he's surely not anyone's major villain in real life, he's doing what he wants.

THE OTHERS

Google shows us it's being done elsewhere.

Posicat, Mark Balliet, of Grayslake, Illinois
A Kent in Brussels
An actual guy with the name Guy, who's been writing for h2g2, the Douglas Adams guide to the real world, so it's quite appropriate
Someone named Ryan Betts, who is working on Thinglink, a social network for furniture -- or a photo-tagging something-or-other
One Chris Read, who works in IT for a stock trading firm
Jess Sutherland - who's actually a girl; then again, using it without a comma, which makes it specifically someone *YOU KNOW* as opposed to saying, don't you understand me without my elaborating further?
A guy from my home whereabouts, Evan Davis, actually came up with a third permutation of the phrase: "He's just, you know, this guy..." which really doesn't take it to anywhere new, frankly
Not a full usage, since it's describing someone else, and it doesn't seem like the subject is extremely out of line, but a Catholic blogger called Jimmy Akin uses it for a Vatican astronomer-type person
Then, wriggler in Dublin

I also got a lot of references to "He's Just Not That Into You."

AND SO...

I believe Douglas Adams started giving Zaphod Beeblebrox a second head just as a throwaway joke in the radio series; the listener could make him come alive in their mind's eye. Putting that second head into actual real practice was a headache for the television series. For one thing, how do you move an actor's spine to the side so two heads can fit on his body symmetrically? You don't. The fake head had to be placed dead center between the real actor's spine and the shoulder, and the effect was extremely out of kilter -- that's even before you managed to get the fake head to look anywhere near lively or real. In the film, I guess the cost of CGI-ing the actor would have been prohibitive -- every single gol-dang shot containing him would have had to be drawn, I suppose -- and they solved the problem by HAVING ONE HEAD FLIP UP TO REVEAL THE SECOND. I felt it was a cop-out.

Can everyone relate to "He's just this guy, you know"? Surely this badge needs to be earned.

For one thing, you should adore Hitchhiker's, and all the wacky, strange world behind it, inhabited by nasty green beings, sweet but huge birds, sentient flowerpots, and a whale that simply cannot fly but dies real funny-like.

I'd like to think I'm "just this guy, you know," or even just a guy that you know, apart from other people you run across in your day-to-day life, but I guess I don't feel I'm weird enough.

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Ten years on

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:04:39 -0700

So, on September 11, 2001, I was on overnights in Hartford, I was just finishing up the day, I was about to booth the last morning news cutin, which would have started at 8:55 AM. At something like 8:54, CBS News went on with the towers just having been hit. We never ended up doing that local news cutin, and I was at work till like 5 PM that day... and ended up taking a hotel room to conk out rather than drive the 90 minutes back to Providence where I was living.

On May 1, 2011, again, I was this close to finishing up the day, I was about to booth the last newscast of the day, which would have started at 11 PM... the network cut in at something like 10:35... and stayed on till midnight. We never ended up doing that newscast of mine too, but at least now I'm home.

I've been working in television professionally (I think several people would debate that last word) for ten years. Wow. And what with internships, other volunteerage and cable access before that, I suppose I could say I've been around television studios since... 1994? the tail-end of middle school?

I know today is going to be more about Osama Bin Laden's Rotten Carcass, but it all kind of does frame a decade - and a big chunk of my career up to now.

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If Woody Allen Was Gay And Liked Shoes (Shopping angst.)

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:35:00 -0800

Shopping angst. Bought boot-ish waterproof shoes size 9 online yesterday 'cuz review said "These run small." Tried on 7 & 9 in store today (8 was absent. 8.5's my real size but these shoes don't do halves apparently). 7 was quite snug & just right - to the point it could have been too tight at some point in the future. 9 had a skosh too much extra room. Store also only had green, sted black, which is what I want. No choice but to wait for 9 to arrive, but should I buy 8 online now too and then just have 2 pairs to try before shipping one back? Yecch.

(45 minutes later)

Have said screw it after reading reviews that the original cracks and leaks way sooner than it should. Went with entirely different brand that I also tried on in store today but they only had in 9 or 10, bought from entirely different online store, in size 8. Looks to be even more serious and hard-nosed at the job.

I'm buying these things in the first place because I've gotten sick of, on days of snow and slush, wearing my furry boots in to work, changing into shoes at work, changing back at the end of the day, even though I'm only walking from house to car, then car to building, and back. Said furry boots also are too heavyish or tall (above ankles) to wear if out on the town in snow, ice and slush. Which I was quite recently. The final decision boots have brown in them though they're mostly black. They'll go with jeans or khakis or chinos if they must. But not with a suit.

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Let's Forget You Together

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:48:34 -0800

How often do covers match the original song almost beat for beat?

Here's a 'duet' of Cee-Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Let's Forget You Together by Cee - Lo Green, Gwyneth Paltrow, And Glee Listen on Posterous

You will tell me if this sounds awful, right? (Especially on the key change at the end.)

(Obviously there's no credit I can take for this, since it's entirely derived from others' works.)

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Tales of an East Providence Nothing?

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:34:00 -0700

After having acquired it several months back, I'm finally reading Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. The only extent of me watching Chelsea Handler is seeing her cameo as herself having the call-girl as a guest on "The Good Wife." I think I'm mixing her up in my mind now with Cheryl Hines. Don't they both have the same cheekbones?

At first when I started reading I wasn't really laughing because it was like, every sentence depicted absurdity, so I just started looking at it critically; like a food critic who's trying a new dish where the chef slaved over every single bite, but I'm not savoring every single bite, I'm just eating with the mindset of thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Eventually, as most people apparently do, it just got so wild and 'out there' that I did finally laugh out loud, several times.

But some of her stories are really riding the line between comedy and tragedy. It's like, is this character being outright abusive, or is it just, this is the way the family relates to each other. More the latter.

It's "from a rough background (conflict) comes comedy." (The other side of the coin, of course, is "from a rough background (conflict) comes drama.") Which is true; sharing your own misfortune and making fun of it makes money. Whether it's entirely true or not.

Not that my home-life was rough in any way, but I suppose I had enough of a dose of social awkwardness growing up to use for comic effect. Enough to start stretching it, anyway.

It got me thinking about writing "what you know." I'm almost 32, and while I haven't had the strangest, most unusual, wildest life ever, I suppose I've lived a little or at least enough to make for interesting reading. But then again, haven't lots of us had unusual happenings in our lives that would also fit? Life isn't all going to the grocery store, doing laundry, driving to do errands, and having everything work and be boring. Everybody has an anecdote of strife, mild horror, gross incompetence, or near-miracle.

I suppose what's different nowadays -- and surely a hundred pop culture scholars have noted this -- is that everybody has a place to gather and publish these anecdotes; everyone has a blog. Which is one of the big reasons discouraging me from writing in public on a grander scale; I feel the need for an angle, a gimmick, a peg, a hook.

I'll let you know when I find one.

One problem is, it seems like it can't be a local television journalist. Yes, the business is interesting to some people; and it's in flux, as the world of media becomes more fractured; but what a producer said years ago has stuck with me. He had often thought of writing a book about newsroom foibles, but said, who would read it? Only other people in the business, he figured. Maybe news junkies who do other things for a living might be interested. But despite all my attempts to make it so -- I can't meet a potential boyfriend without asking him within 5 minutes of meeting him what he does for a living -- your job is not your entire identity; you have things you're interested in outside work.

I probably don't, of course, but most of you do.

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Liveblogging The Movies: "Circuit"

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:48:00 -0700

Small town gay cop moves to LA.

3:23: It's not even 3 minutes into the movie and I'm disgusted. The style was doing just fine being low-key there for a minute. Why does every gay movie have to be so stylized with these cliches:
* Fast cuts
* High-energy clubby music
* High-speed motion to indicate the passage of a lot of time
* Some high concept of visuals
* Wild footage of countryside, downtown landmarks, real estate that was obviously shot from the passenger's seat of a vehicle because it's an independent movie and you can't rent a camera car so you'll just make it look p.o.v.-ish

4:39: Bad acting from gorgeous people. Too many people in the scene not doing enough; window dressing. Too many takes tiring the actors out, or not enough takes or rehearsal getting the actors comfortable?

4:45: Did I mention the awful dialogue? "I can see by the look on your face, Tad's filling you in."

5:14: They're reading lines, not talking to each other. I'm putting myself through another 1:54:46 or so of this?

6:03: Of course the filmmaker decides to navel-gaze and makes one of the characters... a filmmaker. But a budding, prosumer-camcorder, "a cheap video camera we can afford to just note under 'props' instead of having to rent the character a REAL camera" type of filmmaker. When a journalist or reporter does a story about a journalist or reporter there's more acknowledgment, surely, that the storyteller is biased. Not here.

Oh, and of course the "filmmaker" doesn't beg permission of his "documentary" subjects to use their likeness, lives, interviews, opinions.

6:29: Lame. The fake attitude character can't even fake his fake attitude.

And the character being shot by the "filmmaker" not only is not uncomfortable, he opens himself up way too easily to the "film" within the film with no exposition or explanation.

We're also "covering ground" as I like to say - moving from scene to scene, places, concepts, dramatic beats- at a weird, too-fast pace.

7:24: They actually LET him WEAR that to the party? What kind of friends are these people? And he actually WORE that, after the first scene where he woke up on the floor? Where the hell does he think he is? ... If there was supposed to be foreshadowing, it FAILED.

8:16: In the interest of full disclosure I was never interested in LA's scene, gay, straight, film, television or otherwise, so no wonder this movie is going to be excruciating for me.

8:31: Christ, get your damn hands out of your pockets and get something to drink! It's a party!

9:27: Wow. I wasn't imagining things when I thought I saw certain lines badly dubbed/ADR'ed.

9:50: Yeah, this entire movie has WAAAAY too much (forced) attitude for me.

14:23; Wow. Even more gratuitous nudity that, at least appears, to do nothing to advance the plot or set a scene.

17:12: I am dying to see what the writer and director look like - if they're fussy oldish queens who are past it or snotty young boyish men who don't know enough...

18:36: I forget, apparently this was made before everybody was so obsessed with hooking up on the Internet?

18:56: NO REDHEADS?! What's that supposed to mean?!

22:18: Why would you show any man, straight or gay, hitting a woman, even that lamely? If you're going to hit her and you're angry, beat the hell out of her. You shouldn't have hit her at all, but the way you did it was the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

22:53: LOUDER! I KNOW YOU HAVE TO PRETEND THERE'S MUSIC PLAYING SINCE WE CAN'T REALLY PLAY IT BECAUSE WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO HEAR YOU (as depicted in the behind the scenes extras on the DVDs of Queer As Folk US) BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE TO YELL TO BE HEARD EVEN THOUGH HE'S RIGHT NEXT TO YOU! HAVEN'T YOU EVER *BEEN* IN A NIGHTCLUB??!?

23:06: Jesus Christ, does EVERYBODY do drugs?!

24:05: Oh. Wait. Would you specifically call poppers drugs per se? Are they illegal?... will have to look that up...

(Yes. They are illegal in the United States.)

25:14: A cover of "White Rabbit" for the cop character's first descent into drugs? Is that really necessary??

26:23: Well, at least the shagging scenes aren't too gratuitous, but- come on, no missionary position?

27:56: Cousin? It took us this long to find out he's actually your cousin? I don't understand!!!

28:42: You're having to hold the camera too much while your subject moves around too much. What if the onboard mic doesn't pick up his voice?

30:31: Is that really Bruce Vilanch? Or is it just a facsimile?

30:48: Yep, must be. Good joke. Probably the only one in the whole 2 hours.

33:19: Cute girl. The joke setting her up was totally botched. Is the "cute" "twinkish" "filmmaker" going to strike up a friendship with her? They were definitely set up in a Meet Cute.

34:32: This is just screwy. Whaaaat??

35:38: Oh, how nice. She joined the ranks of poorly written, poorly acted characters.

36:34: PAGER?! This must be 1999.

40:16: Um, okay. I guess it's an Avid. The wood paneling in this room is awful. The computer isn't on, it's like you made all the edits, played it out to tape and are watching it on VHS. I think that's probably a Mackie mixer. Nice touch with the extra little laptop to the side.

40:38: It took this long for a fight to even be hinted at among the love triangle?

40:59: "Can you at least talk to him? I need, like, ten grand to finish." Ladies and gentlemen, the only 4 seconds of the movie that felt real.

42:59: Okay, this "fight" sequence is really creepy. And dumb. I hope it's over soon.

46:47: It took this long for the main character to get a makeover? Then again, I suppose pausing the movie every 5 minutes to make snide remarks makes the movie 3 times as long.

48:04: Yes, like the guy making fun of your new ride - or boyfriend? - because he's secretly so jealous of it/him, I am questioning every single solitary decision in this film.

49:40: "I'm not one to judge. ...Are those [steroids] safe?" Okay, THAT's funny.

52:02: Wow. Lamest straight LA lawyer ever. I disagree with anybody who tries to say he matches her character.

54:53: Yes, every gay movie has to have a message. Especially this one.

58:38: Those are totally Nancy Drew books on that one bookshelf.

Oh, and this storyline is just getting creepy.

59:49: That's it? Just a quick scene? Don't we get to see more evidence of this "unstableness?"

1:00:56: Okay, that's getting better. The thesis and the statements were in the wrong order.

1:02:38: Wow, the sound sucks. She's here, and you and he are in other freakin' rooms.

1:03:05: God, you're rude. But not rude enough. Just tilting the camera and keeping this scene/shot flat kinda bites. You, portrayed by the camera, should be turning to the side, turning around - with stereo sound if possible.

1:03:15: Oh, gee, you're finally here! ...where the camera and microphone are finally in front of you instead of pointing away from you or 5 feet from you.

1:04:18: Real documentary interview bite?

1:04:44: ...You're asking the interview questions off the top of your... you know what, I shouldn't even bother.

1:05:49: Wow, he's incoherent. That's good, that's good, keep it going. Who's making this movie, a Christian Coalition wet dream hoping to turn guys straight?

And of course, the obligatory, "What?"

1:06:53: Have these men simply not heard of Calvin Klein and anything that's not plain white briefs?

1:12:20: Okay, okay, okay, there are some decent, real moments, where style and substance converge well. I liked that shot on the escalator looking down.

1:15:39: There's a whole 45 more minutes in this movie, and we've had a rock bottom/downfall/turnabout/Harry and Sally finally have sex and it ruins everything game changer-climax. Another 10 mins to acknowledge the ruin, another 10 mins to solve the problems - the other 25 mins to wrap all the other extraneous storylines, including getting the girl a decent straight guy?

1:21:15 Why does the one black guy have to be the idiot?

1:26:00 So, the "villainous" character is feeling lowest of the low and is next to a pool. Is he going to drown himself?

1:30:19 Am I crazy or did the "John" actor really bulk up and go down in muscle during the course of the picture?!

1:40:27 Well, now that I've seen this movie I never need go to a circuit party. Not before I lose 30 pounds, anyway. And grow 4 inches in height.

1:41:23 At least you can apparently wear blue jeans to the White Party. Well, I hate me in white anyway.

1:45:16 Is Louise nuts?! She's dead meat! (Thanks, Dad, for instilling that term in my psyche.)

1:47:04 Didn't Tad get inspired by his own experience with the circuit to make a movie about it? Where's this attempt at objectivity and distancing himself from it coming from?...

1:47:38 Okay, strobing effect on this scene I can understand; it's conveying the sense of the dance floor.

1:49:59 More drugged vomiting. In unison, no less. "It isn't a good party without an O.D." Thin line between horror and comedy, and this sequence totally rides it.

1:52:20 "I just turned 30." This from the guy who's been saying the whole film he's too old. And then... well, Logan's Run, anybody?

1:56:09 Ugh, we're all drama queens.

Dirk Shafer
and Gregory Hinton

1:59:44 Ugh, God, look at this army of people who worked on this freakin' picture. I wonder how many of them were actually paid.

2:01:38 Look at that!! Kara DioGuardi co-wrote one of the umpteen songs!

Circuit (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218107/

P.S.: Apparently "Louise"'s actress, Nancy Allen, was in RoboCop.

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Drooling over CEOs

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:17:00 -0700

Photogenic entrepreneurs have all their assets accented. Non-photogenic ones have their best features accented. Graham Hill is damn photogenic, at least as photographed by Inc.'s Joe Pugliese. Does he have to work as hard as the Wozes of the world?

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News wire automation fail

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:48:48 -0700

The article text is only blurred out to reduce distraction, but honest, this was spotted in Google Reader... ...and this is why we have yet to put all our news shows on via Ananova.

Wires like the Associated Press have also vomited in this fashion at least once or twice in my experience (usually it's that the wire populated a news article feed or list and included something that a human shoulda done interpreted and taken action on) but not so spectacularly echoed in someone else's widget like this, intending to be a banner ad at the bottom of the article.

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Clothes-Horse: The Triplicate Shirt

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:17:10 -0700

Don't ask me why, but I just bought the same shirt, three different times, in three different stores. They're pictured here.

Well, that's a slight exaggeration; it is not the same EXACT shirt, but all three shirts have many similarities - except for price.

I needed some more short-sleeved button-down shirts. By chance today I found myself at Gap, where not much was exciting me - I'm avoiding plaid or prints, and need deep, single colors - until I saw the shirt on the left. It's $39.50 and was just right.

For whatever reason, then I went to Burlington Coat Factory and found the shirt in the middle for $24.99. It, too, was just right.

Of course, I should have gone to Old Navy in the first place. They win, with the shirt on the right, on sale, for $15, which was just as "just right" as the others.

Two of the shirts have epaulet strips on the shoulders, too. Apparently, such are the trends right now.

So, is this me being a savvy shopper, or just cheap? 8^)

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I'm on an online shopping kick.

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:15:39 -0700

Chuck Taylors, albeit slip-ons. The choice of postmodern hipsters.

Years ago I swore off Nike products -- I *think* because of the alleged/rumored difficult working conditions for employees overseas. Apparently that sentiment finally ended today -- if not before -- when, after a clearance markdown, discount special, and free shipping, I paid just $27.99. Hopefully nobody was caused pain because I wanted to be a little anti-trendy-fashionable-funky.

I should probably look up the latest record for Nike, Old Navy, Gap and other such retailers if I feel this strongly about it. Don't quote me yet, and stay tuned.

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Brain with an off switch

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:09:45 -0700

Once again I'm bored with my own brain, as memories and thoughts and ideas just keep flowing through and connecting and branching off and streaming through the consciousness.

Why can't I just stop thinking about things temporarily so I can go to sleep? At least tonight the memories aren't necessarily bad, or ones I'd like to forget, but enough already: snap my fingers and I'm out like a light.

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"Hey, I know him!!!!...."

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:20:31 -0700

I love that in this world of digital connections and social networking twelve or so friends of mine, who aren't necessarily connected to each other, or know each other through me, all are mutual friends with another random person.

Who I don't know myself!

Granted... several of these people all work in the (local) TELEVISION industry... but still...

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