Monday, April 30, 2007
Molecular Biology Overload!
Sunday, April 29, 2007
"Life Is A Banquet, And Most Poor Suckers Are STARVING To Death!"
Though I'm more like Auntie Lame (if, as the most famous line in the movie says, "life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death," I am an anorexic), I got to thinking about how my blogging life might stack up with Mame's.
This blog, of course, is Beekman Place.
Scott, you're my Vera, the drama queen star best friend, who never has too many martinis or mens. She's a drunken hoor, basically. Fits you to a T, eh?
GayProf, you're Agnes. Take off the glasses and you're Queen of Romania! And I just know you have a bust. Care for a Dr. Pepper?
Vince, you're O'Bannion, with poetry in your soul, and randy thoughts in your head.
Bigg and Gunn, you're my Ito and Norah. Just as Mame's faithful servants make her life possible, my blog simply wouldn't function without your faithful readership and commentary. Now, could one of you pick up my dry cleaning? Oh, and make sure you pay the butcher soon. Take the Duesenberg.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some sparkly capri pants with matching duster/cape to try on. *swirls out of the room, cigarette holder held aloft*
Saturday, April 28, 2007
But Will There Be Jetpacks?
(Via Bookslut)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover...
(Via Bookninja)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Crocodile Matchmaking
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
I'm Not Even A Good Lay For MYSELF!
Have you ever settled down for a nice masturbation session, only to have it turn out... less than satisfying. The porn doesn't do anything for you, the mood isn't quite right, the friction isn't stimulating the genitals as it should, and you just can't get the fire of lust to spark in your brain? After an hour of changing porn, squirting on more and more lube (I need a lot, anyway; my penis is kinda sensitive) that gets more and more thick and gucky, it becomes a matter of stubbornness: "I started this, damnit, and I'm going to get an orgasm out of it!" Not exactly a good time.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Garden of Eden
Adam was walking around the Garden of Eden feeling very lonely, so God asked Adam, "What is wrong with you?" Adam said he didn't have anyone to talk to. God said he was going to give him a companion and she would be called "woman."
God said, "This person will cook for you and wash your clothes, she will always agree with every decision you make. She will bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. She will not nag you, and will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you've had a disagreement. She will never have a headache, and will freely give love and compassion whenever needed."
Adam asked God, "What will this woman cost?"
God said, "An arm and a leg."
Adam said, "What can I get for just a rib?"
(Via Comedy Central Jokes)Sunday, April 22, 2007
Now In Cutevision!
"I'm scared, Mom!" "Don't be silly, Otto; Mommy won't let anything bad happen!"
(Via Cute Overload!)
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Snake Bite
"Why?" asked the second.
"Because I just bit my lip."
(Via Comedy Central Jokes)
Friday, April 20, 2007
I Smell Summer Blockbuster!
(Via Bookninja; Maud Newton)
SOMEONE At NYT Was Having A Flaming Day!
Also, how can I get a job writing stuff about men's underwear?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Porn Removal
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Gymnasts
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
It Sure Beats A Cardboard Box In The Backyard
(Via rogueclassicism)
Is Nothing Sacred?
(Via rogueclassicism)
Monday, April 16, 2007
Medievalist Say The Darnedest (Smart) Things
A medievalist who is also a Tolkienist reacts to some forms of Tolkien criticism and then shows how it should be done.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Star Wars Re-View
I've gone through the Star Wars hexilogy (or whatever the hell six connected movies is called) in HD via Comcast OnDemand on our new plasma TV.
The Original Trilogy actually holds up pretty well. There are a lot of things, though, that, when you stop and think... it's not that they don't make sense, but that they seem kinda rushed. In A New Hope, it's mostly a matter of character timelines: the characters just seem to get way too chummy way to fast. Now, being thrown together in a dangerous situation can made bedfellows out of the most disparate characters, but there is a certain... intimacy that just seems to come out of nowhere.
Empire Strikes Back, while definitely the best of the Original Trilogy, has a huge timeline issue. Luke is on Dagobah for about two days, apparently, before cutting his training short and going to Cloud City, yet apparently learns everything he needs to know to be a Jedi. But, whatever, because nothing will ever top "Luke I am your father!" and "Noooooooooooo!", nor "I am not a committee! *Threepio squawks as the Millennium Falcon shakes in the asteroid "cave"*"
Return of the Jedi is actually pretty good in terms of timeline and characterization. And I like the Ewoks, and I don't care who knows it! (I had a Wicket teddy bear when I was a child, as well as an R2-D2 toybox. I wish I'd kept them in good condition, since they'd probably be worth money by now, especially the toybox. Unfortunately, the toybox was very roughly treated and kinda fell apart. Poor Wicket lost his hat and, several years later, was the recipient of my dear, departed Dusty's pubescent.... attentions.) There's also the whole triumphing over the Empire and redeeming Darth Vader stuff, which is all uplifting and crap. But there's something, some spark, missing from it. I think it's the lack of time on the Millennium Falcon, to be honest. Except for Lando in the cockpit, we hardly see it! I don't know why, but that really takes something away from the movie. Or maybe the lack of Falcon represents what's the real issue: that, more than in any other of the Original Trilogy, the gang are all off doing different things most of the time. The times when everyone, or even a large percentage of everyone, is together and interacting is relatively low, which takes something, some charm or chemistry, away from the movie.
The Phantom Menace
...still sucks. And it's not, as a lot of people seem to think, Jar Jar Binks' fault (though he doesn't particularly add to anything and they went way overboard with that ridiculous accent), but the AWFUL writing and acting. The original cast somehow made the horrible lines somewhat believable, or at least campily fun, but even such esteemed actors as Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson can't muster up enough enthusiasm to make their material work. Liam Neeson, in particular, often seems to be silently conveying the message, "What the hell am I doing here?!?" And I don't care what anyone says, I don't like Natalie Portman. I also pity the poor kid who played Anakin, because the lines Lucas came up with for HIM are even more excruciating and eye-roll-inducing than those of the rest of them. He talks like an adult, but a really boring, stilted one. His mom kinda rocks, though. Oh, and Yoda is a lot cooler as a puppet in a swamp than a puppet in a council room or a CGI creature kicking ass, as we'll see throughout this and the succeeding two movies.
Attack of the Clones
AotC actually turns out better on re-viewing. The romance isn't nearly as annoying as it is in RotS (more on that in a sec), though still rather inexplicable. I mean, you can see it from Anakin's POV, idealizing this pretty older girl he met ten years earlier and hasn't seen since and getting his hormones all worked up about her, but not from Amidala's POV. She just sort of falls in love with him because he's there and reasonably attractive. Hayden Christensen is also much better at lighthearted banter and action than he is at strong emotion. He just looks kinda pouty and petulant in the latter state (more on that in a second, too). Ironically, I saw a mini-documentary OnDemand that went along with the movies where George Lucas says that he picked Christensen because he did dark better than light. Errr... yeaaaaaaah, George. Whatever you say.
My favorite part of the movie is Jango and Boba Fett. My friend and I call young Boba "the surly kid" because he's always either being rude or really, really into killing people, and it is awesome. But then it's Boba F'n Fett, so what else did you expect? Jango is both hot and dangerous. And the moment at the end where Boba touches his forehead to Jango's decapitated head/helmet, while sort of creepy if you think about it, is rather touching.
Darth Tyranus/Dooku (which is stupid-sounding name in a whole galaxy of stupid names) was woefully undeveloped, especially in light of the ignominious ending he gets in the next movie. I know he's more developed in the Clone War cartoons and the comics and books and such, but in terms of the movies he just doesn't cut it as a villain (which is a shame considering how awesome Christopher Lee is). I blame that stupid cape. Only Lando can wear one of them and [kinda] get away with it. Frankly, I would have preferred Darth Maul be resurrected or something.
Revenge of the Sith
Overall, I think Hayden Christensen was miscast. He seemed more petulant than conflicted on the road to evil. Not that petulance can't be an expression of evil, but I just don't think that's what they were actively going for, so it doesn't sit right. Plus, he and Natalie Portman have flat chemistry, making the "romantic" dialogue even clunkier and painful than it would have been regardless. Natalie Portman also had nothing to do in this movie except be pregnant and die. The spunk and moxie her character shows in the other movies is entirely lacking; she goes from an active participant, to a mostly passive plot point. I mean, you can't have a pregnant lady running around shooting things like in the first two movies (especially in strategically ripped white jumpsuits), but I think they went too far the other way. I also think Portman was very unhappy with this turn for the character because, though as I said above I don't like her, it's obvious that she just gave the hell up by this movie. She was much livelier and more engaged in the first two movies.
The movie is absolutely gorgeous. Of all six movies, RotS is the most beautiful. And the action is really good, too.
One thread thing that runs throughout the prequels, which I hadn't really noticed before, and comes to full flower at the end, is fatherhood. Anakin doesn't have a father (literally), so one of the foundations of the whole trilogy is his relationships with father surrogates. Qui-Gon is the first, the one who recognizes that he's special, that takes him away from slavery and into the Jedi Order. Ben starts out as a mentor father-figure, though it turns into a brotherhood sort of thing in a way I would think is common with single fathers left to raise their sons alone. But the biggest, in many ways, father relationship is with Palpatine. It's a twisted, dysfunctional relationship, but it's undeniably important. And, surprisingly, it's not (just) one of Palpatine's plots. While he undoubtedly uses it as a lever to turn Anakin to the Dark Side, you do get the feeling that he genuinely cares for him, in a very dark way. His concern for Anakin's life (and this just may be Ian McDiarmid's superior acting) is palpable when he finds the burnt remnants of his new apprentice on Mustafar, for example. And he's a very bizarre "proud papa" at the moment of Darth Vader's "birth." There's also a similar paternal streak running through the Original Trilogy, with Obi-Wan and Vader the ultimate good dad/bad dad contrast.
Random
I really don't know if Lucas intended it, but by the end of the prequels, you're left with the strong belief that the Jedi were a bunch of dicks. For me, anyway, they kinda deserved what they got. Their arrogance and aloofness made it almost pitifully easy for Palpatine to take them down. Their arrogance (though often rather subtle) is understandable what with the superpowers and all, and forgivable for the fact that they mostly go around do-gooding, but it can't have endeared them to many, and blinds them to their own shortcomings and mistakes. Being aloof can work for a mystical order of monks who actually don't interact much with the world, but not when you're a mystical order of monks who go out into the galaxy and kick ass all the time. One can't be both inward- and outward-looking, but the Jedi somehow try to do both, and it's part of their problem. And because they're all "above" it, they're also dangerously naive, politically. "Politicians bad!", while perhaps true, is not a terribly instructive or constructive opinion to hold when you're working for them. They also really feel that they're perfectly right and superior: the attempted Jedi coup proved that.
Both Sith and Jedi want order, though in different ways, with the Sith wanting a perfect empire to rule for all time, and the Jedi a perfect utopia of peace and justice. But they both fail, as all tyrannical ideologies fail, because perfection and perfect control, of the galaxy or even one's self, are impossible. The universe is a chaotic and unpredictable place, and always will be, no matter how hard one tries.
Both orders are also too concerned with feeling and not enough with thinking: the Sith wallow in passion and greed and every other emotion, whereas the Jedi bottle their emotions up, all while at the same time relying on them, "searching" their feelings and impulses to find the "correct" course of action. They think too highly of themselves and their abilities with the Force to ever even consider that they can't find all the answers just by looking inwards to themselves (either individually or within the Jedi Order more broadly). A good dose of rationality and critical thinking would help them enormously.
C-3P0 and R2-D2 rock. They rock hard. Really, the whole saga is all about them; screw the Skywalkers, it's the droids! Also, despite the fact that Anthony Daniels is apparently actually a dirty old man who likes young women and it's just his Britishness that makes him seem gay, C-3P0 is the gayest, most fabulous android ever! I seriously wanted to be him when I was young.
I want Amidala's outfits! Even the white jumpsuit!
Captain Antilles, the commander of the Tantive IV, one of Bail Organa's aides? Dreamy. Blink and you'll miss him, though. I also love and totally want those Alderaanian poncho things they were wearing.
Ian McDiarmid obviously had fun camping it up, and I for one loved that. It was an aspect of the Original Trilogy that was sorely lacking, otherwise, from the prequels.
Ewan McGregor is hot, not that that's really news or anything. I'd be his Padawan (so I can call him "Master," of course) any day! It was scary, though, how much like Alec Guinness he progressively looked over the course of the prequels.
So that's my ginormous Star Wars review that took about ten thousand years to post. May the Force be with you, always!
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Saturday the 14th
I Feel Weird
Friday, April 13, 2007
Shocking Revelation: Gays Drive!
Sidebar Welcomes
My rampant Anglophilia forces me to include the anglo-licious Think of England. Very thought-provoking and very British. What's not to love?
Friday The 13th!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Typing Tetchiness
A blog post or email that's nothing but lowercase letters and ellipses-in-place-of-other-punctuation and inexplicably formatted paragraphs, which are disconcertingly common, is enough to make me scream. Even on a cruising site like ManHunt, nothing turns me off faster than an almost illegible profile or a message that has nothing nothing but lowercase "i"s. (Yet another reason why I don't get laid.) Just as bad are those who ABUSE THE CAPS LOCK AND THUS LOOK LIKE THEY'RE SCREAMING ALL THE TIME. Either "style" makes it difficult to actually read what people have written. It also makes me, at least, less interested in trying to figure it out anyway. I don't want to give myself a headache or spend ten minutes deciphering hieroglyphics to figure out how someone's day was or what someone's preferred fisting position is.
The purpose of writing is to impart information to another person or persons with a minimum of confusion and a maximum of clarity. Proper typing goes a long way towards communicating your message clearly. So start typing better or no one will know, or even care, what the hell you're saying!
Why Is The Sky Blue? Why Is The Grass Orange?
What I've never understood, though, are the plants here on Earth that aren't green. We have a Japanese cherry tree in our front yard and it's leaves are like really dark purpley-red. How can it be that color and still undergo photosynthesis? Is there something different about its chlorophyll? Gunn, you're a horticulturist, enlighten me!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
"Going Down The Shops, Love! Be Back In An Hour!"
(Via PhDiva)
Andrenaline Phobic
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Opposites Attract
I ask because there is this one straight porn star that really gets my motor going. He's been in several of those "behind the scenes of the porn industry" documentaries HBO does, as well as being in Skinemax softcore productions. He's kinda smarmy and dirty, but he just does something for me, so much so that I've actually contemplating buying some icky yeast-filled porn just to watch him! So I was just curious if anyone else had a thing like this.
Wild Irish Ho's
An Irish daughter had not been home for over five years. Upon her return, her father cursed her.
Where have ye been all this time? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn't ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old mum thru?
The girl, crying, replied, "Sniff, sniff... Dad... I became a prostitute..."
"Ye what!!? Out of here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this family."
"OK, Dad -- as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion plus a savings certificate for $5 million."
"For me little brother, this gold Rolex and for ye daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside plus a membership to the country club... (takes a breath)... and an invitation for ye all to spend New Years' Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera, and..."
"Now what was it ye said ye had become?" says Dad.
Girl, crying again, "Sniff, sniff....a prostitute dad! Sniff, sniff."
"Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old man a hug."
(Via Comedy Central Jokes)Monday, April 09, 2007
What A Way To Make A Living!
To this day, I occasionally belt out a rousing chorus of "Working 9 to 5" in my best Dolly Parton voice. Fergie and Charlotte don't approach my level of awesome, of course, but they do a creditable tribute to Miss Dolly.
(Via Perez Hilton)
It's Not Where You Live, It's Who You Are That Counts
(New Yorkers seem to be the worst in this way, BTW. They're mind-bogglingly parochial in their cosmopolitanism. And such internecine strife! It's all, "Oh, this borough is better than that borough!" and "People who live in such-and-such neighborhood or do such-and-so for a living are douchebags!" and "Only *I* am a true New Yorker!" and "Things used to be so much better before X started moving in!" Seriously, New Yorkers are concerned with "ideological" purity enough to make any 1940s Soviet kommissar blush! To be honest, all the anxiety about who is and is not a New Yorker just makes my little internal psychoanalyst think that they're none too secure in their own bona fides.)
Guess what? People like different things! Therefore, what is heaven to one is hell to another. And no one place in the world has an absolute monopoly on arts, culture, nightlife, cheesesteaks, assholes, douchebags, or anything. Different places have different mixtures that appeal to different people. So just chill and deal with it, people! There's no need to be so touchy and argumentative about the whole thing. It really doesn't matter all that much.
There's nothing wrong with a little hometown/regional/national pride. Just keep a sense of proportion and empathy to the whole matter. People are people, wherever you go. You just have to find the right people and all will be well.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Saturday, April 07, 2007
I Did Not Know That!
Friday, April 06, 2007
Recommendation
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Luckily, He Probably Won't Procreate
(Via Inside Higher Ed)
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Sidebar Welcome
Tech Support Wasn't Any Better Long, Long Ago
Funnily enough, my own email address (mandalorin@hotmail.com) is Star Wars related, too. Anyone know how? Calling all nerds!
I'm Such A Martyr!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Site Meter
Answer To A Burning Question
Even though you have a bad track record with the sex (thus far), what kind of fantasy kiss makes your knees melt?
What makes a good kiss? Truthfully, I just don't know! I haven't done a lot of kissing in my life. Thus far, I haven't been much impressed. Indeed, I've found that I have a bit of sexual ADD: I get bored very quickly with any sexual act, from kissing to oral to whatever. I'm kinda sure (and hoping) it's just due to the lackluster sexing I've gotten so far, though.
Anyway, the best kiss I ever had was a rather unexpected one at my Ye Olde Friendlye Neighborhoode Pornne Shoppe. There was an older gentleman who worked there who took a bit of a shine to me. So one time, while browsing, he came from behind the counter and, well, started kissing and fondling me. I was a bit taken aback, and, frankly, I didn't find him terribly attractive, but I thought: "Eh, what the heck!" To my surprise he was a great kisser! He was firm, but gentle, moist, but not slobbering.
So I guess my dream kiss would have those characteristics, connected to a smart, funny, witty man, probably older and woofy and willing to sweep me off my feet to a life of glamour and happiness. (Hey, he said fantasy kiss, remember!)
Sunday, April 01, 2007
April Fools!
I've just signed an exclusive contract with Titan!
I just accepted a dream job and will be moving to London to sit around and do nothing!
I just inherited a million dollars!
I've found Jesus and will now blog only about my Bible study group meetings!
I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds!
I can now reveal that I'm a CIA operative charged with finding Osama bin Laden. Turns out, he's been in Cape May, New Jersey the whole time!
I'm running away to Canada with Scott to be married. We're registered at Tiffany's, Mr. S Leather, and Barnes & Noble!
I'm witty and clever and do hilarious April Fools jokes that always dupe everyone!