Month: June 2003 (Page 1 of 7)

Memo to Bill Frist, Rick Santorum and Mrs. du Toit

I don’t hate straight people. I really don’t. In fact, a lot of my good friends are straight. (Hi Dave and Susan! Love you!) I’ve been around straights all my life, and for the most part, I haven’t had a problem with them. I mean, my straight friends don’t throw it in my face or anything. Whatever they want to do in the privacy of their bedrooms is fine; I mean, sex is a private matter, right?

But then you turn on the TV, watch a movie, read a magazine, and the straight agenda is all around you! Men and women are kissing, groping – and getting married! Have you ever noticed how many bridal magazines are on the stands these days, right out in the open? That’s just flaunting it, if you ask me. And marriage isn’t some sacred institution – straight people are getting married to people they just met, and on TV no less!

The media just seems so pro-straight sometimes. It makes me uncomfortable – why should I have to watch that stuff? Ick. If they want to do it, who am I to say they can’t. But do they have to be so militant about it all the time?

I’m sure the media doesn’t show a balanced view of the straight lifestyle, anyway. Judging by TV, straights are just sex-fiends, going from one Spring Break wet t-shirt contest to another, hooking up on camera for money, getting their butts spanked on Howard Stern etc. Ugh. I’m sure that’s not what most straights are like. They’re good people, despite their…habits. But those few straights who get all the media attention are ruining it for the rest of them.

Just keep it in private, please, and we’ll all get along fine. Thank you.

MetaFilter comment of the week

“God told me that it’s cool for gay people to get married. God himself is actually G, L, B, and T. He also said that tolerating intolerance is pseudotolerant, and that not tolerating tolerance was intolerantly toleratious. Then we shared a hearty, holy laugh over the fact that people think he wrote a real long list of contradictory rules and that they have to force others to follow them.”

-from a thread about Frist’s comments on banning gay marriage

Your right to swing your fist ends at my face.

Everyone’s been sending me this article (in various forms) about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in the shadow of last week’s Supreme Court decision, coming out in favor of a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

“Frist said the Supreme Court’s decision last week on gay sex threatens to make the home a place where criminality is condoned.”

What a fucking tool.

As with most things on the American political landscape these days, this is both unsurprising and infuriating. The fact that I can’t get married in “the freest country in the world” makes me crazy; the fact that bigots like Frist are in the highest positions of government in this country makes me angry.

It hardly matters that a Constitutional amendment is incredibly difficult to pass. What Scalia said about “the culture war” is right; except we’re not the ones waging it.

Anniversary

Yesterday marked the three-year anniversary of ‘words mean things.’ (The Chandler post doesn’t really count, although I still like it, which is why I kept it.)

I’ll spare you the whole “what this thing is and what it means to me” deconstruction, because I did that last year, with my 999th post. I’ll just say, to everyone reading these words: thank you.

28 Days Later

I liked Danny Boyle’s non-zombie zombie movie – it was stylish, well-acted, and tense/shocking at times, if not really scary. The digital video gave it a distinctive look that I enjoyed. But for some reason, most of it evaporated from my head soon after we left the theater. It just didn’t have the weight that I expected; the dread. It seemed more like a film school project than a story about people dealing with the end of the world.

I liked it much more just as we left the theater than I do now. Like a rollercoaster ride, it was thrilling in the short term, but didn’t leave much behind.

One of the reasons I like Boyle so much is that he directed one of my favorite movies, “Shallow Grave.” And there’s more dread and weight to that movie, about a group of friends dealing with a dead roommate and a suitcase full of cash, than there is here.

If you want a brief fun ride, it’s worth it. But if you want something that will stick with you once the lights come up, rent “Shallow Grave” instead.

“They drink a lot of Pepsi in the post-apocalyptic world, don’t they?”

-Me, responding negatively to the product placement in Danny Boyle’s non-zombie zombie picture, “28 Days Later”

I read recently about a chain of discount movie theaters opening up in England (can’t find the link). You buy your tickets online on a sliding scale – the further before the showing, the less the tickets cost. Then you go through a subway-style turnstile at the theater, scanning your ticket as you enter. There’s no concession stand, but you can bring your own food as long as you take your garbage away with you. I don’t remember specifically, but there probably aren’t any previews – but no ads, either. (We saw eight of them at “28 Days Later.”)

I would patronize this kind of place in a heartbeat – if they could keep the dang movie *in focus.*

“In order to appreciate the sunshine, you also have to appreciate the rain.”

-Quiz Kid Mike Van Sistine

Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of buying the online game “Star Wars Galaxies.” I haven’t played any other traditional online roleplaying games, because I’ve been put off by being squashed by higher-level players, and the seemingly endless cycle of kill monster, level up, kill monster. But from what I’ve seen so far, SWG takes pains to allow people to play the game however they want, and gives lots of alternatives to monster killing. Plus, there are 10 distinct “planet” environments, and exploration of new stuff would be a major draw for me.

I did enjoy The Game Neverending for a while, but the beta has been over for months and there’s no sign of the “real” game yet.

The other problem is, I tend to get frustrated/bored with games easily, which is why I mostly just play demos these days. That’s not a possibility with SWG. Still, I’m tempted. Any advice from people who play these games would be welcome.

According to SFGate.com, GWB and Co. will be spending more than $400,000 a day between now and November 2004 on his re-election campaign. So in order to keep a job he already has, he will be spending as much as he makes in a year every single day for 16 months.

Put another way, in one day our President will be spending 24 times what I made last year.

Looking at her site again for the first time in a while (see previous post), I found that, like all proper wackos, Mrs. du Toit has an enemies list. And boy is it long. When you’re in the company of both Richard Nixon and Moe Szyslak, you know you’re on to something.