Category: words mean things (Page 94 of 223)

Here’s a question for all you out there who do frequent business on eBay. I recently won an auction for a video game, where the postage was listed as $5 for a tiny cartridge. Apparently then he sent the thing regular mail, and two weeks later it hasn’t arrived. So there’s no way I can prove he didn’t send it, and no way to prove I didn’t receive it. In this situation, am I just out of luck as the buyer? Or does the seller have a responsibility to get the item to me? And thus, has to either refund my money or resend the item?

I don’t do much business on eBay and this has never happened to me before, so I don’t know what the rules are. Any thoughts?

How cold is it?

I’m alternately cursing at the cold, rubbing my hands together furiously, taking long hot showers, and being silently thankful that John’s prediction Wisconsin would become “The Mango State” probably won’t come true. Yet.

Watching Ebert & Roeper give their usual list of crappy movies as the Top 10 for 2002 (Ebert named “Minority Report” the best of the year, unbelievably), I realized I’ve never done that sort of list on the site. So here goes:

1. Punch-Drunk Love
2. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
3. About Schmidt
4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
5. Bowling for Columbine
6. Lovely and Amazing
7. Sunshine State
8. Monsoon Wedding
9. Solaris
10. Notorious C.H.O.

Other than the No. 1 spot, the rest aren’t really ranked in order. They’re all great, for different reasons. I’m pleased about the eclectic mix of movies on my list this year. If you have favorites from 2002 that I didn’t list, I’d love to hear them.

I can only think of one Worst of 2002: “The Truth About Charlie.” Truly horrible.

I used IMDB to look up the release calendar for the year, to make sure I wasn’t missing anything outstanding from earlier in 2002. Did you know that porn/soft porn titles are also indexed on IMDB? My favorite title was “United Colors of Ass 9.” Now there’s a cinematic franchise to be reckoned with.

Why don’t more business sites use weblogs? They keep things current, they’re easy to update, they’re easy to set up, they let lots of people participate, they’re mainly text. All the best attributes of good business web sites, rolled into one. It seems like such a simple idea, but so few people understand, as the Cluetrain Manifesto puts it, “what the web is for.”

I guess those of us who love and understand the medium just have to keep plugging away. The rest will catch up. Someday.

The main problem with “About Schmidt” is it’s being marketed under false pretenses. To watch the previews, you would think it’s an “Election”-style wry comedy. Instead, what you get is one of the most profoundly sad movies I’ve ever seen.

Maybe this was on purpose, for lots of reasons. People may not want to go to a sad movie these days, and perhaps the emotional punch of the film comes somewhat from being unprepared. I know I wasn’t ready for what I saw in Jack Nicholson’s eyes in this story.

It’s a brilliant, touching film about how life moves past us when we’re not looking. Nicholson, who I normally can’t stomach, is a marvel. This one stays with you. There are laughs, but even those come from sadness. Highly recommended – but know what you’re getting into.

Heaven for a word person and “West Wing” fan like me must be to hear a cool word on the best-written show on television. So I was ecstatic when reporter Danny Concannon told C.J. Cregg the Democrats were “bumfuzzled.” Not only because it’s a cool word, but because it’s so true.

On the one hand, Democrats are so confident in their good intentions that they never learned how to play hardball. And on the other hand, they’re so cowed that they have no ability to stand by their convictions. Not a great combination. They are so paralyzed, they’ve lost the ability to spin even the simplest issue to their way of thinking. Aaron Sorkin continues to show his willingness to skewer his liberal brethren, although I wish he’d do it even more.

As an added bonus, apparently next week’s episode will focus on the coolest woman on TV right now, Allison Janney’s C.J. Cregg. I can’t wait.

Haven’t posted any photos in a long time, so I thought I would offer up this one, a cool shot of one of our family bulldogs, Emily, probably circa 1975 or so.

Yesterday was fun. I had another instance of someone responding to my low-key communication with unexpected spitting venom. Unfortunately it reminded me of the Global Dialog incident. And there have been others in recent memory, all involving e-mail communication. Maybe it’s an e-mail thing – I know that people tend to haul off and smack someone in an e-mail when they wouldn’t do so in person, or even over the phone. But I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something about me that causes people to snap.

The other problem is, I wasn’t able to just shrug it off as I should have. It really bothered me all day yesterday. If someone is unexpectedly difficult, insulting, or rude, how do you handle it? I’m not some sort of hothouse flower that needs to be handled carefully. But sometimes things just come out of left field, you know?

OK, back to Joe Millionaire, Justin Timberlake’s broken heart, and other matters of importance.

“Can’t Believe I Just Saw That” Award of the Week

Martha Kent is making superhero costumes for her son on the first episode of “Lois and Clark.” We get to the final familiar one, and Martha leers up and down Dean Cain’s body, saying, “Well, at least they won’t be looking at your face. They don’t call them ‘tights’ for nothing.”

I almost poked out my own eyes.

I watched “Joe Millionaire” on Fox last night. And while I’m not proud of it, I’m not ashamed either. It was damn entertaining. Seeing those women leer at the French castle and all its trappings was fun, and having the rose of The Bachelor replaced by jewelry of escalating value was a brilliant touch. Not to mention the competition for the dresses to wear to the ball hosted by the fake millionaire.

Those producers are good.

But for me, the thing that crystallized all that’s creepy and yet compelling about these shows was watching Mr. Fakey fondle the women’s necks as he put the pearl necklaces on last night’s lucky ones. (Later the women were shown testing the necklaces to make sure the pearls were real. Did I mention these producers are good?) Only a brilliant TV strategist could come up with a premise that simultaneously caters to and mocks everything that makes “reality” shows such ratings boosters these days.

I’m hooked.