With the demise of “Top Ten Blog,” I would love to start a popular and fun group blog. But I need some ideas. I think a group blog should have a strong concept behind it, an interesting focus and point of view. Any brainstorms out there?
Month: January 2002 (Page 3 of 5)
Maybe they can use this on “The Chamber” contestants.
I’ve been thinking about Top Ten Blog lately. It’s finally happened – my last post was so long ago, it’s fallen off the main page. It was only about a month ago, but early on I was posting just about every day. And the page is now stuck on a baffling “workplace jokes” list. For the last couple of months I’ve been finding the list topics people post to be difficult to contribute to. I think Haidi (on weblog hiatus or I would link to her) is amazing and wonderful and her idea for TTB! was great. But it seems to be losing some steam.
What do you think?
Had two disturbing nightmares last night. In the first one, I was on a flight that was landing, and we were for some reason coasting in under a giant overpass. Then there was a little drop, like a turbulence bump. Then the plane just did a nosedive into the ground, and I could sort of see the front of the plane translucent as we plummeted to our deaths.
Ahem.
I woke up all disturbed and upset, but still managed to get back to sleep. Then I dreamed that I was on a huge double-decker bus with my brother Matt. He almost fell off the top of the bus because he was clowning around, so the bus driver stopped and pulled over to the side. But the bus was on the edge of some sort of bog, and before we could get off the bus, it had sunk into the bog with us on it.
This is all quite weird since I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do they are usually standard anxiety dreams – I’m in school and I can’t find my classroom, etc. These were disturbing. Not sure why I’m writing about this – maybe to get it out of my head.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
“Everyone deserves happiness, even if it doesn’t last.”
-Aurora Greenway, The Evening Star
As a companion to “The Chamber” from yesterday, I just found out there’s a video game coming out for the Playstation2 called “State of Emergency,” where you control rioters killing and looting their way through a 3-D cityscape.
Here’s a snippet from a review of the unfinished game:
“Rocket launchers, flamethrowers, Uzis, shotguns, grenade launchers, and even dismembered body parts such as arms and heads are all available for use in destroying everything around you.”
I think it’s time we just junk this culture and start all over again.
Stumbled onto a new game show called “The Chamber” on Fox (of course). Sort of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire in Hell!”, the show asks contestants general knowledge questions while they are strapped into a torture chamber. They are either frozen with jets of cold water and ice, or roasted with flames and high winds. They are also shaken, rotated and shocked with electric stimulators.
Welcome to network TV, 2002.
“The Running Man” and “Series 7” can’t be far off. And as you might expect, I also saw a promo tonight on ABC for a similar show called “The Chair.”
Oh my sweet lord.
“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Finally saw “The Royal Tenenbaums” last night. While I was expecting a “Rushmore” (which remains one of my favorite movies of all time), what I got was something more complex. It starts off like a joke, a goof – everyone is so fantastically “eccentric.” You laugh, but you think, is this all there is? Then unexpectedly it starts to deepen, not exactly into tragedy, but into something that holds a mirror up to how complex and messy life can be.
The performances, especially by Gene Hackman and Gywneth Paltrow, are exceptional. I’ve never liked Paltrow particularly, but here her blank sad-sack expression (complete with thick black eyeliner) carries the weight of the world. And I would watch Hackman read the phone book. His Royal is an inspired concoction – just enough humanity and love to make you realize he’s not a total bastard.
Can’t wait for director Wes Anderson’s next one.
Geniuses produce
I feel the need this morning to plug JD’s weblog, “The Real John Doe.” In my little links database (which you can see rotating in the sidebar), I called it a “mind expansion project,” and that’s as close as I can get to the feeling when I read it. Go there now! (© Miguel)
Plus, JD linked to one of the more interesting pages I’ve read recently: A Theory About Genius. Mind expansion is a good thing.
Random thoughts on the Survivor finale:
-I was glad Ethan won. I was rooting for him from the beginning. But I have to say my favorite was Theresa. I just fell in love with her, and I respected her last-ditch effort to stay by confessing her vote to Lex.
-Kim J. was arguably the weakest competitor in the whole game up to the final episode, staying because of her original Boran alliance. But she impressed me with her final two immunity wins, especially “hands on the idol.”
-Couldn’t believe how everyone was obsessed with how Kim J. was 56. Come on people, that’s not that old.
-I liked Kelly when she was the victim of Lex’s maniacal lust for revenge. But her intense bitchiness while on the jury and that stupid “pick a number” thing (remember Greg?) made me dislike her maybe more than anyone else there.
-This series was certainly not as interesting as what went before it. But Survivor is still more fascinating and entertaining than 90 percent of what’s on the airwaves these days.
-Lindsey looked like she had peeled her face off to reveal another face beneath.
-Apparently, nudity on your audition video drastically increases your chances.
-Bryant Gumbel should be placed on a remote island somewhere with a blood-soaked volleyball and left there. Our world would be a better place.
-Among his many faults, Gumbel gave short shrift to Theresa in the reunion interviews.
It was a fun series. But as my Florida blog colleague Xkot said, it lacked the extremes of either good or evil that we saw and enjoyed in the other two.
I’ll be watching the next one. Definitely.