Advertising is an inexact science
Sign on the tap for Minute Maid Lemonade at Noodles today:
Minute Maid Lemonade
0% Juice
Month: August 2003 (Page 5 of 6)
Gigli
Simply put, this is a movie struggling to exist. Without Ben and Jen to attempt to hold it down, it would have evaporated from the film stock like a Kleenex in a hurricane.
Even more tragically for those actually sitting through it, the movie’s not even bad enough to be entertaining (although Affleck’s preening in a wife-beater before the bathroom mirror, his painted-on tattoos rippling, comes close). It’s just two long hours of indistinct *stuff*. I barely remember it, and I walked out of the theater a half hour ago.
Just after the movie started, a middle-aged woman came in alone and sat a few seats over from me and my friend Amanda. When the woman got up and left at about the half hour point, Amanda bet me $2 that the woman was walking out for good; I bet she was just going to the bathroom.
I owe Amanda $2.
“Oh My Freakin’ God” Award of the Day
“U.S. President and Naval Aviator” Action Figure
-via Daily Kos
Here at words mean things, the OMFG Award used to be monthly (or weekly, when things were really crazy). But these days, that’s just not enough to keep up.
Threat and comfort
Well, Mrs. du Toit has closed the comments on her gay marriage thread, so that’s the end of that. I feel relief in some ways. It’s wrenching to be told, basically, “We let you exist, even though you’re an aberration. What makes you think you deserve to get married? Pretty soon we’ll figure out what went wrong with you and your kind and we’ll be rid of you.” So it’s nice to have that over, although the hatred stays with me.
But worst of all, she closed the thread right after an emotional account of the deaths of her brother and his longtime partner to AIDS, in which she predicted that her brother, too, would be against gay marriage. Her dead gay brother would be against being allowed to marry his partner because
“There is no evidence yet to suggest that homosexual couples can offer society, through marriage, what heterosexual marriages have proven to offer. That is not to say that there is evidence that homosexual unions are not as good, or there is no potential for equal benefit, but the data is not there yet.”
and this…
“If they want society to change then they must prove that they are of value and present a compelling argument that they are worthy because they have demonstrated that they are, not because they covet what others have.”
There’s more…a lot more. But you get the idea. She eulogized her brother by saying he would have agreed with her that his relationship was intrinsically less than hers (and by extension, that *he* was less). That’s sick and wrong. And that’s what will stay with me, long after the particulars of this debate fade.
I did take comfort in comments snuck in by another poster while she was writing this awful stuff – comments directed toward MDT and her minions that ended up being the capper to the thread.
“Face it folks, despite the lively and somewhat frightening debate we’ve been having here, you’ve already lost.
And that’s the best part.”
Family fun
THE SCENE: Your basic Wisconsin supper club. My brother Matt decided he wanted to celebrate his birthday, which is in November, now while he’s in town visiting. So me, my mother, Matt, and my somewhat hard-of-hearing stepfather Orville are sitting having birthday cake after a nice meal.
Matt: Maybe the waitress will give me a lap dance for my birthday!
Orville: Lap what?
Mom: A LAP DANCE.
Orville: Lap dance? What’s a lap dance?
Mom (to Matt): You tell him.
[PAUSE]
Matt: A STRIPPER MAKES YOU EJACULATE IN YOUR PANTS.
Simultaneously, all the forks held by the dozen diners at the next table clatter to the tablecloth.
Wondering
The exchange of my mortgage company’s 800 number is 666. The office is at 6661 University Ave. Should I be concerned?
Quote of the Day (Mrs. du Toit Special Edition)
“Immoral lives – it’s Australian for ‘queer.'”
-Jon Stewart, making fun of an Australian Episcopal bishop who decried electing the church’s first openly gay bishop as promoting “immoral lives”
Brushes with greatness
My friend Paul is convinced that David Lynch was sitting a few rows ahead of us at Westgate Cinema tonight during a screening of “Swimming Pool” with Charlotte Rampling (review to follow). Paul maintains that Lynch’s wife is from Madison and Lynch has been known to spend time here.
During the furtive glances I allowed myself, it certainly looked like him: the wacky upswept salt-and-pepper hair, the starched white shirt, khakis and loafers. But my brain finds it hard to reconcile that David Lynch would be catching a movie at Westgate Mall in Madison, Wisconsin. I felt sort of like one of those robots on the original “Star Trek” that were driven to self-destruct by Capt. Kirk’s illogical utterances.
My father (see below) would have thought nothing of going up to Mr. Maybe Lynch and finding out firsthand, and probably engaging him in an amiable 10-minute conversation in the process. Sadly, that part of my dad’s DNA wasn’t passed on to me.
Sitting in the movie theater, I did think of a lot of funny lines I could have used on him:
-“What’s Naomi Watts really like?”
-“I loved ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ Mr. Demme.”
-“You’re that guy! You know, that guy!”
-“Was that Sci-Fi Channel ‘Dune’ a piece of crap, or what?”
Then when we left the theater, Could Possibly Be Lynch and his group were crossing from the mall to the parking lot just as we pulled past in my car. I stopped and waved them on.
Happy Birthday, Dad
Today is my father’s birthday. He was without a doubt the most brilliant, artistic, loving person I’ve ever known. He’s as close to a hero as I’ve ever had. He could also be maddeningly stubborn, contrary and argumentative. I see him in myself more every day. And every day, I realize more clearly how lucky I was to have him as a father. I miss him more than I can express.
One of my best compliments to people I meet is, “I wish you could have met my father. He would have loved you.”
Word of the day