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Friday, July 10th, 2009
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6:02 pm - wait, what
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You know those scenes in certain movies like pirate flicks or Robin Hood movies or firefighter films or a circus movie I don't know where the hero shinnys up a slackly-tied off rope while hanging from below it?
Well, the cat on the floor suddenly rolled onto his back, grabbed the sofa cushion hanging over the side of the sofa, and proceeded to drag himself along the floor upside down by shinnying along the cushion with his claws. Then he reached the end, let go, rolled back over, and ran off into the kitchen. I think this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen him do, even beating out the time many years ago when he insisted on running up and sticking his head through the slats of a venetian blind no matter how many times I pulled him out and shooed him away.
I didn't realize he was that hard up for entertainment around here. I guess I should start leaving the TV on for him or something.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
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9:46 pm - it's awesome time, everybody put your awesome hats on
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Finally, the next time someone asks me "Hey Spatch, what's awesome?" I can safely and without any hesitation answer "this."
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, July 3rd, 2009
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10:49 pm
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Okay, sometimes this new crappy cameraphone surprises me and takes a halfway decent picture for a change.
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
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11:39 am
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| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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12:58 pm - IT'S CERTAINLY BAREFOOT TIME HERE IN THE SUNNY MUGGY LAND OF HEAT
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The heat in the office just kicked in. You can smell the dust and whatnot in the vents burning off just like you do every fall when the weather gets cold enough that the heat kicks in.
Thing is, it's July.
Supposedly.
Did we switch hemispheres when nobody was looking?
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(13 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, June 26th, 2009
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10:01 am - oh the laffs and luv
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As of yesterday I've been doing this thingo for six years.
And it all started with:
1. A favorite technical catchphrase
2. Picture of PARTY TIME AND LOTS OF WORDS IN ALL CAPS
3. Some post from the future that didn't work
4. Some inane conversation between me and my mom involving mystery wounds
5. Brilliantly tasteless Photoshop turning Scientology propaganda into a Goofus & Gallant swinger's party joke
Some things I guess never change.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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6:44 pm
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Well, it looks like Obscure FM's prophecy finally came true 17 years after the fact.
Half of it, at least.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009
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6:47 pm - they try to make me to go chewhab, I say no, no, no
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Yesterday I had the good fortune to view the Snickers bus ad that trumps the last worst one ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) joyeous had:Do some hard time in the
PEANUTENTIARY I am now hunting down this elusive beast with a camera for photographic evidence of horribleness.
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(10 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 18th, 2009
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2:50 pm - Spatch's Law of Men's Bathroom Usage
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If you're standing in front of the urinal and the only thing in your hands is your Blackberry, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Move away from the urinal, you sonofabitch, and let someone with a full bladder take a crack at the damn thing
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 15th, 2009
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9:42 pm
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I should like to go on the record now and state that of the past ten years, one of the outstanding geniuses when it has come to television credits music is Ricky Gervais. No, seriously. He took two rather obscure pieces in the pop/folk rock universe and turned them into great songs that capture the emotional core of each series he's done.
For his series The Office, he used a version of Handbags and Gladrags, made famous by Rod Stewart back in 1970 (he covered it off some other artist, but no matter.) It's a real bitter song aimed at a materialistic teenage girl:So what becomes of you, my love
When they have finally stripped you of
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old granddad had to sweat to buy you? Stereophonics did a cover of it a while back, but I prefer the original, even over the new version recorded for The Office (it has some unnecessary over-saxophony saxophone in it, I think. Nyer.)
Gervais' next series was Extras, in which he played Andy Millman, a professional extra who performs background parts -- but no speaking roles yet -- in various motion pictures filmed in Britain. He hangs out between takes with his friend and coworker Maggie, and they have little Seinfeld-ian conversations about nothing or neuroses. There's at least one or two great celebrity cameos in each episode, which chronicles Andy's constant attempts to wrangle a speaking part and his inept agent (played brilliantly by Stephen Merchant) who does absolutely nothing to help.
Most every episode ended in some kind of defeat or Phyrric victory for Andy, and that's when the first few piano notes of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman would come in. It's a beautiful, sad, lonely piece. The shot cuts to credits on a black background just as Cat starts singing.Bring tea for the tillerman,
Steak for the sun
Wine for the women who made the rains come
Seagulls sing your hearts away
Cause while the sinners sin, the children play
Oh lord, how they play and play
On that happy day, on that
Happy day A full on stereo chorus joins Cat on that very last "Happy Day" and fills the entire piece rather suddenly. And then, as the last little piano coda plays out, there's usually a shot of someone in the show in one final tiny joke (Gervais did that with The Office too.)
And that's it.
The best thing about this theme is that it works over both series of Extras. See, at the beginning of the second series, Andy's finally gotten his big break: a television show and a starring role at that. Problem is, his show is one of those lame, cliched, formulaic sitcoms which pander to the lowest common denominator and relies on a catch phrase or two for audience loyalty (the show-within-a-show, When The Whistle Blows, is hilariously terrible in almost every conceivable way.) And every time an episode ends that season, it's typically with Andy sitting there trying to figure out what the hell is happening. He's got that happy day, now, but it's horrible. And here's that lonely little piano piece again. Nicely done.
Ricky Gervais' style of comedy deals mainly with putting himself and his friends and associates into humiliating predicaments. It's cringe humor, and sometimes it's very difficult to watch, especially as whatever situation they're in inevitably escalates beyond everyone's comfort zone. And yet, these two bitter and sad songs soften it all in a way. They invoke the mood before and after each episode.
In short, they're just two very good musical choices, and I thank you for your time.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
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12:18 pm
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Learned this week that the back half of the Lincoln Park Comet collapsed early in May. The collapsed section was the far turnaround that you went into right after the first drop, and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Every time I visited the ruins the bottom of that first drop was always in standing water. That's hell on the wood.
The Comet closed in 1987 when Lincoln Park shut down for good. The coaster's remained standing, left to the elements, for over 20 years now. The lift hill collapsed several years ago and the trains were taken out of the coaster structure for use at another park (which I thought had plans to resurrect the entire Comet design at one point, but it never came to be.)
I last visited the coaster site back in August with Joye and it was pretty clear then that coaster structure didn't have much longer to live on its own, anyway. Shame nobody stepped up to take care of it back when it could've been saved, but back then this whole coaster preservation thing was new and unfamiliar territory (Knoebels and the former Wild World had both moved existing wooden coasters by 1987, at least, but those were the major exceptions.)
Ah well. In a way I'm glad nature's doing the job on the Comet and not a developer's bulldozer making way for crappy condos or something.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
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10:54 pm - Type in your post's subject here
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Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter Tweet Tweet Twitter,
Tweet Twitter Tweet Twitter Tweet Tweet Tweet.
Twitter Twitter Tweet Twitter Tweet Twitter Twitter,
Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter Tweet Twitter Tweet.
The preceding has been a public service brought to you by the Council For Repeating Things Until They No Longer Make Sense.
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(17 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, May 29th, 2009
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12:14 pm - RULE 34 IS NOT CANON
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DOCTOR WHO DOES NOT NEED LOVE INTERESTS, PEOPLE
HE IS A TIME LORD
HE IS IN LOVE WITH TIME
AND HE IS MARRIED TO THE TARDIS
HOW MANY TIMES MUST I SPELL THIS OUT FOR YOU
LEAVE THE ROMANCE TO THE FANFIC ROMANTICISTS
THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE HERE FOR
GRARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH
if this shit keeps up I don't know what I'm going to do
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(43 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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9:37 am
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The reason why there are a whole bunch of NOSMO KING signs around the outside area between South Station and the Fidelity building is because
A. The wood mulch in the planters is made of wood and wood can burn, and
B. This particular concourse is wonderfully designed so that on certain days it becomes one hell of a wind tunnel, and
C. When wood mulch (which is made of wood) burns (and wood can burn) and does so in a wind tunnel, the sparks are automatically and lovingly fanned into quite a nice little smoldering pile.
So by the time I filed out onto the little stone area, the discarded cigarette butt thoughtfully dropped by some civic-minded individual had created a happily smoldering pile of cinders. Just like a real cozy campfire! Let's bring out the marshmellows and sing O, An Austrian Went Yodeling!
Me and this other guy (we were the only two people who apparently even took notice that there was this fire thing going on) spent a moment in conference to decide what to do. We couldn't stomp on it to put it out, because that'd just send the sparks flying in the wind. So which agency should we report this to: South Station, or the Fidelity building? Did we trust the same people who run the Commuter Rail to do something? I opted to head for the Fidelity building and ran into a facilities person heading out to see the little fire. She said someone was coming with an extinguisher and, from the tone of her voice, it sounded like this was a regular occurrence.
Now my clothes smell all smoky. It smells like Dad would when he'd come home after a fire call. Kinda reassuring in a childhood memory sort of way. I don't think anybody else in the office would agree, though.
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(11 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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10:21 am
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I've watched six episodes of Freaks and Geeks in two days. I'm not sure if that qualifies as "temporarily living in 1980" but it sure feels like it.
I haven't seen the full series run ever, and the last episode I watched was a few years back before the DVD came out and bittorrenting was kinda new and my computer was so crummy it could barely play a 60-minute AVI file. Before then, I only caught it in 1999 during its very sporadic network run when it wasn't busy being pre-empted or getting cancelled.
I've picked up a lot more notes in the writing in the 10 years since I saw more than one episode. Back then, Mid-20s Me picked up on a nostalgia factor and the high school factor and the crush on a girl factor and the fitting-in factor. Now, Mid-30s Me is picking up on disappointment, adult regret, the realization that dreams will be crushed, and the lasting unease and uncertainty that comes with not knowing where the hell you're going anyway. That the show refuses to end any episode except the pilot with a typical "happy" ending helps underscore a lot of that.
Still, it's a wonderful show. It manages to make you laugh like hell one moment, then rip your heart out and stomp all over it the next, and after that, make you laugh like hell again, only this time with a stomped heart.
I got a few more episodes to go. Guess I know what I'll be doing with my week.
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, May 18th, 2009
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11:58 am - from shel s.
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Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblin's gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I've had to make myself.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
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10:08 am
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Harper Lee told us it was a sin to kill a mockingbird, but if she'd been around last night at 3 AM she may have wanted to at least throw pebbles at the one in my backyard.
So it'd fly to another tree.
Somewhere else.
In another time zone.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
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9:44 am - I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here
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Radio Radio is coming out for Rock Band DLC today.
I hope it starts with a few bars of Less Than Zero.
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(13 comments | comment on this)
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12:23 am
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I got home from work, made happy noises about Mountain Dew, and then fell asleep for the usual amount of sleep I get in a night. Now my body's really confused.
Yes, I can drink an entire Mountain Dew and then go right to sleep. Your Earth chemical caffeine is useless on us, puny hu-mans. That's why we're so goddamn cranky in the morning.
Looking through the "What can I do besides to try to go back to sleep?" options, I see that Fox Movie Channel decided tonight to screen Vanishing Point. Depending on the version you get, this film is one of the best cars-go-really-fast road movies you'll see besides Two-Lane Blacktop or, like, The Cannonball Run. It inevitably has had a remake, see.
I present to you here the capsule descriptions as given to me by my channel guide thingo. Given my deep and abiding love for remakes, you can pretty much guess which version I like better, but just compare and contrast here.
Vanishing Point (1971)An auto deliverer floors a Dodge from Denver to San Francisco, guided by a blind soul-station DJ.
Barry Newman, Cleavon Little, Charlotte Rampling, Dean Jagger, Victoria Medlin
Vanishing Point (1997)An expectant father speeds a muscle car across four states, guided by an Indian spiritualist.
Viggo Mortensen, Christine Elise, Jason Priestley, Keith David, Steve Railsback
Even though it's just started I'm not going to watch the remake, because the only reason I would watch would be to find out just how Viggo Mortensen got himself pregnant. I'm reasonably sure the movie's going to disappoint me on that front.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, May 11th, 2009
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5:33 pm - MORE SUGAR
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In case you were too distracted by the "CHEWFAIL" ads that Snickers has everywhere to notice the other ads, Pepsi has come out with "Throwback" versions of both Pepsi and Mountain Dew that are made with real sugar.
I bought both tonight for comparison. Started in on one.
The Mountain Dew is absolutely fucking delicious.
Now:- Coke needs to hop on this goddamn bandwagon and fast. Waiting a year for Kosher Coke or other amounts of times for friends to come back from Mexico or OtherCountry is too long to wait.
- This needs to not be a "limited time collector's edition!" deal.
- Snickers needs to shut the chewfuck up.
That is all.
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(28 comments | comment on this)
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