Month: June 2003 (Page 2 of 7)

Mrs. du Toit, meet Justice Scalia.
Justice Scalia, meet Mrs. du Toit.

From an AP story about the Supreme Court striking down Texas’ anti-sodomy law today in a 6-3 vote:

“The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda,” Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.

“The court has taken sides in the culture war,” Scalia said, adding that he has “nothing against homosexuals.”

The Shape of Things

I must be in a particularly misanthropic and cynical phase right now, because I quite enjoyed this movie. It’s the usual Neil LaBute m.o., cardboard characters playing out the worst in human nature. But I liked this more than “In the Company of Men,” because that went so over the top that it was hard to grab hold of anything other than your instinctive outrage at these people’s behavior.

In “The Shape of Things,” I saw representations (unrealistic and stagy as they were) of the real ways people hurt and betray each other. And how people who allow themselves to be manipulated and taken advantage of are often complicit in their own pain.

I liked how the notions of who is a sympathetic character in a traditional movie take a beating here. The “nice” people in the story are, if anything, worse than their “mean” counterparts.

I know, I make it sound like a real fun time at the movies. But I think it’s a good thing to be shaken up a little every once in a while; it beats being lulled to sleep.

Last night my brother Matt told me on the phone that since I had talked so much on my site about how great “Punch-Drunk Love” was, he made a special trip to the video store to rent it.

I tried to tell him I wouldn’t have recommended the movie to *him*. Our tastes in movies are, shall we say, somewhat different. (He watched “Legally Blonde” four times.) He said he wouldn’t blame me if he hated it. I hope not.

This reminds me of when I recommended “Limbo” to my brother Roby. He hasn’t let me forget that mistake ever since. 🙂

Sometimes there is just so much I want to say, but I know this is not the place for it. That applies to both personal and professional matters; I’m pretty sure just about anyone with a weblog knows what I’m talking about.

Sometimes this page is the absolute best way to move things out of my head by putting them here. Sometimes it’s the worst. It’s the grey area in between I have trouble figuring out.

Meanwhile, read Miss Anthropy’s poem. She’s one of the reasons why the web is the Best. Medium. Ever!

Interesting comparison between Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean. Discuss. (via This Modern World, which you really should be looking at more)

Also via TMW comes Republicans for Sharpton. Words fail.

My Blogshares portfolio (is anyone still futzing with this?) started at 500 fake dollars and 1,000 fake shares in this weblog. It’s now worth $3.7 million (fake).

For some reason this makes me think of a comic who said, “I don’t even have enough money to play the lottery. So instead, every once in a while I just look at my bus pass and say, ‘Damn.'”

Gurgle.

Last night I dreamt that I had a terrible itch on the bottom of my right foot. But when I went to scratch it, I just tickled myself and the itch remained. As usual, don’t know what this means.

Does anyone know of any *good* municipal web sites? I’m up for redesigning a small city’s web site, and it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good city web site – they’re all pretty bad. If anyone knows any nice-looking, useful municipal sites, let me know in the comments. Thanks.

Seen around

Jesse was talking about getting a camera phone and starting a photoblog where you post directly from the phone to the web. Cool idea. It inspired me to take my giant Canon G1 along on my walk today. Click on the hydrant to see a few images I got. (The squirrel is for Kevin. I’m not a squirrel fan.)