Jon blog
“I have a lot of thoughts on this, and for the full details, please visit my blog.”
-Jon Stewart on the David/Liza breakup
Month: October 2003 (Page 3 of 7)
Convenience
My friend Paul told me about how a convenience store in my neighborhood has a little mini post office inside, complete with P.O. boxes and all the rest. The postal counter is right next to the counter where they ring up the Twinkies and Sun Chips. So I went in there today and I must say, having a real post office so close – with no lines – is a boon.
I was sending something to Columbia, Missouri (written “Columbia, MO” on the package). The clerk took one look at the label, punched “international” into the shipping computer, and told me in a bored voice, “You’ll have to fill out a customs form.” I was a little distracted so it took me a second to understand what he was saying.
“It’s Columbia, MISSOURI,” I said.
“Oh right,” he said.
Not as bad as the 11-year-old at the movie concession stand, but still funny.
“Listen, mister – this shit is pretty!”
After dissing the craptastic “Mystic River” dialogue the other day, it was interesting to watch “Lovely & Amazing” again last night from my NetFlix list. There’s some great acting in this movie (especially the always wonderful Catherine Keener), but for me the real genius is the dialogue. It has that messy, hestitating, talking-around-stuff quality that real words from real people’s mouths have.
It’s fascinating to me how difficult it is to write natural dialogue. We hear ourselves and others talk all our lives, but when it comes to putting words on paper, even the best writers can get bollixed up. Watch “Lovely & Amazing” and see what I mean.
The horror! The horror!
According to New York Metro, Richard Simmons is known for making fellow airline passengers uncomfortable by acting as “greeter” in first class, bouncing around in his signature tight Lycra shorts (a “disturbing package on display”), and singing everyone’s name to the tune of “The Name Game.” Simmons explained his behavior thusly:
?I get on a plane and help serve the food and water! Throw pretzels! Get people going! Sometimes I do a little chair aerobics. I?m like the court jester of the sky!?
Can my travel agent make sure I’m never on a plane with Richard Simmons? This is a kind of terror no metal detector will be able to stop.
Bullets GWB has dodged (so far):
-his lackadaisical “military service”
-the “16 words” about uranium in Africa
-The Wilson/Plame CIA affair
-musical chairs in the administration
-Cheney and Halliburton and Iraq
-“Mission Accomplished” and the carrier landing
-the only job-losing presidency since Hoover
-cutting veterans’ benefits in wartime
-turning a budget surplus into a massive deficit in less than three years
-no WMD in Iraq
-no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda
-no Saddam, no Osama
Bet I forgot a bunch of them, too. (If you think I missed any big ones, let me know in the comments, and I’ll add them to the list.) Talk about Teflon! Damn.
Today’s guest poster: Lisa D. of the currently on-hiatus “Lisa Crankypants”
So I’m lying in bed (just like Brian Wilson did) watching TV, and I see the commercial for the new “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” I don’t watch movies like that normally, as seeing people sliced and diced is not what I feel is entertaining. But I’m tempted, if only to see if I could get an answer to the burning question, “Where does Leatherface shop?”
I mean it. If nothing else, the guy has got to be burning through a major amount of replacement chains and gasoline. Where does he get more? Does the guy down at the local hardware store say things like, “Gee – the scary lookin’ dude with the human skin mask was in again, getting more chainsaw parts. And it ‘pears that another carload of teens has disappeared. Hmmmm . . . say, did anyone see that new episode of Miss Match last night? I swear, that Alicia Silverstone gets purtier and purtier!”
I dunno – maybe he shops a lot on the web.
-from an e-mail Lisa sent to me last night
Lessons in getting along with people, courtesy of “Boy on a Stick and Slither.” Have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much I love this strip? (Fortunately I have few strong feelings, pro or con, for mongooses.)
iTunes
In my ongoing struggle to continue to think of myself as a Mac person, despite not having owned one for years, I downloaded the new Windows iTunes the moment it was released.
I haven’t bought any music yet, but just looking at the interface is a calming experience. It’s elegant and simple and beautiful, like Macs themselves. It instantly replaced the RealOne Player I had been using to listen to music on the computer. The RealOne is a Kia to the iTunes’ Mercedes.
I think if I actually bought a Mac and switched back, I’d be so mellow people wouldn’t recognize me.
So many things wrong with this spam e-mail subject line, I don’t know where to begin:
“Show your women a 3-inch increase!”
“Liberals don’t want to fight terrorism. You want there to be lots of 9/11’s.”
Read this jaw-dropping transcript from Hannity & Colmes on Fox, and try to suppress your instinct to press Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity to death between large stones. (via This Modern World)