Month: June 2003 (Page 3 of 7)

Overheard near the “Harry Potter” display at Borders

Mother, grabbing giant book and dragging 7-year-old away by his hand: “OK. Let’s go get a book for you.”

Father: “Where’s the regular one?” (Clearly wanting to purchase a softcover version, not understanding the realities of book publishing.)

Mother: “It’s 1,000 pages. I guess we can’t finish it tonight.”

Bored/cynical bookseller, when I asked if people got a discount on the book for pre-ordering it: “Not any more than everyone else got.” (the book is 40 percent off)

I have no idea why anyone pre-ordered this book, especially because anyone interested enough in it to pre-order it would have heard that the initial print run was going to be something like 47 million books. (It’s actually 6.8 million, but same idea.) You could have built a house with the number of copies at this one Borders alone.

My friend Michele, the biggest Harry Potter fan I know, called me excitedly this morning (waking me up) to tell me she had procured one of the treasured volumes. I told her I would wait until she read it and then borrow hers. I’m not in a hurry to read it; I can’t even remember what happened in the last book.

Neither could Michele.

John Callender of lies.com is talking about his current pick in the Democratic presidential race, John Kerry. Kerry was among the throng of Dems who voted to allow GWB to go to war in Iraq. John C. reprinted an interesting quote from the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal:

“For the sake of argument, let’s say Kerry is right and Bush perpetrated a sham. In a hypothetical general-election match-up, who would you rather choose to deal with hostile foreign leaders: a guy who’s capable of pulling off such an elaborate deception, or the sucker who fell for it?”

Good point. But the truth, of course, is even worse. I don’t believe Kerry or really anyone else on Capitol Hill took Bush’s trumped-up Iraq “evidence” seriously. So Kerry wasn’t a “sucker,” but something infinitely worse – a coward who worried more about his political future, about appearing “soft,” than about standing up for what he knew was right. For me personally, that’s a deal-breaker.

Clockwatchers

“Everything is temporary. Everything begins and ends and begins again. When I look ahead, I imagine infinite possible futures repeated like countless photocopies, a thousand blank pages, and in each one I see myself, never hiding, never sitting silently, and never just waiting and waiting and watching the world go by.”

Every time I watch “Clockwatchers,” I’m reminded what a beautiful little gem it is. Wonderful cast, sly writing, humor and pain in equal measure. Watching it with Jesse last night, I was struck by the cinematography: each shot is like a modern-day Hopper painting. I’m convinced that if he were alive today, Hopper would be depicting the same bleached, soul-draining office landscapes found in the movie.

Highly recommended.

Cool breezes

In honor of turning on my air conditioning yesterday for the first time this year, I decided to use the above image as my desktop background. (You can click on the image to get a desktop-sized version, 327K)

I feel cooler already.

H. Sandwich in 2004!

Mike VS: Well, if Joe Lieberman is running in 2004, I can’t see myself voting for him.

Me: Really? If a ham sandwich was running against Bush, I’d vote for it in a heartbeat.

I stand by that assertion. But if I had to pick a favorite among the Dems right now, I’d pick Howard Dean. He understands grassroots organization, he speaks his mind forcefully but with common sense, he makes good use of the internet, and he has none of the “let’s beat Bush by falling all over ourselves to be the most like him” stink that permeates most of the other candidates.

Plus, how could I not like a guy who presided over passing civil unions for gay couples in Vermont? He caught tremendous heat for it but still managed to get re-elected in 2000.

“Vermont is the only state in the country where everyone is equal under the law and I think that?s a good thing and I think most Americans believe that?s a good thing.”
-Howard Dean on “Meet the Press,” March 2003

I was convinced after watching Dean’s performance against the smirking Tim Russert that Dean has the ability to frame issues strongly, with an air of common sense, and still get his point across. Just what we need right now, if you ask me.

They say celebrity deaths come in threes. (Witness Gregory Peck, David Brinkley and Hume Cronyn.) They also say bad things in general come in threes.

My question is, if you’ve had three, are you done for a while?

After an extended period of mental and emotional funk, today I did a whole new design for a web client and a new logo for a print client.

I’m back, baby.

Adventures in movie rental

Like a lot of people, I think, my friend Paul and I often say to one another, “We should rent that!” after a movie we both like but haven’t seen in a long time comes up in conversation.

So the other night we decided to rent a movie. Neither of us could remember any of the “WSRT!” candidates, of course. I suggested we go to the fine local establishment, Bongo Video. Paul said he would rather go to Four Star, which does have a larger selection, but irritates me by being one of the most inaccessible retail establishments imaginable – it’s downtown Madison, across from about four always-filled parking spots, on a one-way street bordered by two more one-way streets.

So we venture forth to Four Star. And eventually we leave the store with “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” the one movie in creation that every video store on God’s green earth has 40 copies of.

To add insult to injury, when I made my special trip back to return the movie, I ran inside (since I was parked illegally) and handed the DVD to the girl behind the counter. She pointed to another empty counter five feet away, saying, “Returns are over there.”

Let me just say: I love Bongo Video.

I think this about sums it up

Elaine: I will never understand people.
Jerry: They’re the worst!