I’ve been a bit busy writing the last few days (Top Ten Email Gaffes of 2009) and now my brain is vanilla pudding, so I’m taking a brief break from the blog until after Christmas is over. Thanks to everyone who visits on a regular basis. As a way of showing my appreciation, I’ve included a photo of what I truly believe to be one of the funniest things on the internets. The text is a little scrunched, but it’s worth it. I present to you the classic “100 Pushups”.
Click to enlarge. (Giggidy.)
Without doubt, the biggest thing happening in science fiction right now is the new Avatar film from James Cameron. While I haven’t seen it yet, I’m a little surprised by all the reviews and Twitter talk I’ve been reading about how great this film has turned out. I mean, I was pretty firmly on-board the hate-train for this movie and now everyone’s transferred to the U. S. S. Liking It? WTF, mates? I mean, look at those cougar noses!
WTF IS THAT?! It looks like a smurf-bobcat crossed with a Vulcan. It looks like it ate some of that Willy Wonka gum that turned Violet into a blueberry. It looks like it’s asphyxiating. And those are the biggest eyes I’ve seen since Elijah Wood’s.
Anyway, I’m not going to let a little thing like “not having seen the film” deter me from doing a review. But, in all fairness, I can’t really go about reviewing the actual film, so instead I’m going to review the reviews of the film in this week’s Sci-Fry Fiday AND Saturday Review (because I’ll be at a party getting quite charming tomorrow)!
The Bri’ish Telegraph’s Avatar Review by Mark Monahan (Four Stars) – Does this movie really deserve a review that begins “Seldom in the field of film-making can one man…”? Really, Monahan? You’re going to start us off with an epic “seldom”? Monahan goes a bit more deeply into the actual plot of the movie than many reviews I’ve read, but his whole eco-minded “this movie will save the planet and it’s heart is in the right place” angle seems a little French. Also, I really dislike the term “eye-popping”. It seems like something I’d want to avoid. I do like the fact, though, that he talks about how over-hyped this movie is, but then he spurns my love again by saying that all the hype is true and it’s the best thing since sliced spotted dick or whatever the English equivalent of bread might be.
Groucho Reviews’ Avatar Review by err… Groucho? (Three Stars) – Wait, the mineral that everyone’s after is seriously called “unobtainium”?! Wow, that’s, like, the worst name ever. That’s like naming your main character “John Everyman”. That said, I enjoyed this review’s whole “escapism/acting/wish fulfillment” angle, but he lost me when he wrote the phrase, “deep in the eye-popping jungle”. Then he won me over again when he called the Na’vi princess “Pocahontas in digital drag”. Well played, Groucho. Well played.
Reeling Reviews (I get it!) Avatar Review by the Cliffords (B-Minus) – This review actually made me sleepy while reading it. According to the Cliffords, there’s some imagery of a falling tree that invokes memories of 9/11 and then there’s… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
MTV’s Review of Avatar by Kurt Loder (Stars are soooo passé right now.) – Wow, this guy’s still around? I guess when you get older on MTV, they just shuffle you off to the writer’s booth. Actually, I respect Loder not just for that thing he did to Jewel that one time, but also for the casualty of his prose. This is probably the best Avatar review I’ve reviewed so far. I enjoyed Kurt’s curt, mocking tone and his knee-jerk reaction to anything that young and hip people worldwide are pretty roundly enjoying. Stay tuned to the MTV website for Kurt Loder’s forthcoming exposé on lawns and how Mr. Loder feels about you kids being on his lawn in particular. (Spoiler-alert: he doesn’t like it!) Go curmudgeons!
Flicked Off, with Mary HK Choi: ‘Avatar’ at The Awl – Best review I’ve ever read. This review actually made me excited about Avatar. Some highlights: “I am SO GAY for this movie that I can’t stand it.” “I am a happy meniscus that your spite sauce slides off of.” “I feel like I’m trying to tell you in mashed potato.” Regarding people who might think about bit-torrenting the film: “that person is a hope rapist that should be shot in the face for dream treason”.
I’m officially in love with Choi’s review and we’re going to make baby reviews together. Then, long after our passion for one another has cooled, I’ll stay with this review because it completes me. Later, in our twilight years, when this review loses all of it’s memories of our long and happy life together, I’ll make a notebook of our beautiful love. Every day I’ll visit the minimum-security rest-home where Choi’s review lives and I’ll read to it from the notebook in hopes that it will remember. Then, on the rare night it actually remembers, we’ll have a brief moment of lucid passion before it forgets again and has to be put down by rest-home staffers like an angry wildebeest. I love this review that much.
A Smattering of Twitter Avatar Reviews
@theMovesMusic: Caught Avatar at a midnight IMAX screening (in 3D of course), the story was Dance With Wolves Part 2, but Zoe killed it and JC created ART.
@mattnewton84: avatar was amazing. It feels weird being attracted to a 10 foot tall blue alien girl… whatever… she was hot…
@varka: I sadly can’t really begin to describe Avatar; I’m kind of lost for words to describe it. I’ll need like 24hrs for it to sink in.
@rainnwilson: I will go see Avatar, quite simply, because I friggin love the color blue.
@chrishokeblog: ZOMFG, Twitter SUX for movie reviewz! LOL! ROFLMAO!!!!1!! #lame #avatar
The Verdict
So, from what I’ve gathered by reading these reviews, watching James Cameron’s Avatar is like having your eyes popped out in a mesmerizing jungle of blue cougar-people where everything is a metaphor and nothing isn’t lushly rendered in over-the-top, agonizingly-brilliant, multi-colored, computer-generated beauty. And it’s ART. And @RainnWilson is funny.
Stay tuned for next week’s Saturday Review when I might actually review Avatar itself! Meanwhile, I’m going to go read Choi’s review just one more time…
♫Once… Twice… Three times… a review…♫
Did you ever notice how much the late Billy Mays looked like Bluto from Popeye?
Yeah, me neither.
Damn it, I said sexy FEMALE ninja assassins!
Ahoy-hoy! Welcome to Trivia Tuesday, which is a weekly blog post where we see how far the rabbit hole of knowledge really goes.
I can’t help but be slightly aroused by the previous sentence. Go ahead and read it over again, out loud, and in a sexy voice. I’ll wait.
All done? Then here we go.
Sexy Japanese Female Assassins
Called Kuno-ichi, Japanese femme fatales were not just a fearsome bunch, but manipulative too. Disguised as geisha, prostitutes, fortune-tellers or entertainers they could get right in close to their targets, much easier than their male counterparts. It was because of this that their training often focused more on disguises and poisons and using their feminine wiles to their advantage rather than on outright fighting, which isn’t to say that they were not capable in that area as well. They could break bones with their wooden shoes and put hidden blades in their fans. They would even use an umbrella as a weapon or shield if the situation called for it.
The Kuno-ichi rarely needed to resort to using swords or shuriken, instead they would use their natural attractiveness to lure their targets into sexual entrapment, which is like regular entrapment, but sexier. The word Assassin, by the way, was invented by William Shakespeare.*
Found Guilty of Being Australian
In 1954, a fellow named Bob Hawke was added to the Guinness book of world records for being able to drink 2 and a half pints of beer in 11 seconds. Which is quite a feat and an excellent party trick, I think, and probably made him a pretty popular guy, because he later on became the Prime Minister of Australia.
It’s fairly well known that Australia was founded as a British penal colony (in fact it has been recorded that 22% of non-aboriginal Aussies have at least one convict ancestor), but it should be noted that you didn’t get sent to Australia for serious crimes like rape or murder or impersonating an Egyptian (which was a serious offense back then), those people were put to death in Jolly Old England, and people who committed lesser offenses were sent to Australia because the English believed that the best way to lower the crime rate was to simply export all the criminals.
Some of the lesser offenses that could land an Englishman a vacation to Sydney include: recommending that politicians be paid (the nerve!), starting a union, stealing fish from a river or pond, receiving or buying stolen goods, or being suspected of supporting Irish terrorism. Who’d have thought that stealing a fish from the river and being in cahoots with terrorists would merit the same punishment, but there you go, that’s what you get for thinking.
Da Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa, that famed painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, was, like Rome, not made in a day. From the start of the painting to the final brushstroke, it took Da Vinci a span of 16 years to complete it; he began working on it in 1503 and carried it with him when he emigrated to France in 1516 and finished it three years later in 1519 shortly before his death. However, only around 4 of those years, it is said, were spent actively working on the painting. There is reason to believe that much of this time was spent working on and pondering over that most famous aspect of the Mona Lisa: her lips.
Although currently residing at the Louvre in Paris, France, the Mona Lisa has had a number of homes, most notably the bedroom of Napoleon Bonaparte. What’s more, the advent of X-ray technology has shown us that there are 3 different versions of the Mona Lisa under the visible one. None of them, unfortunately, are nude.
* – Not really. The word “assassin”, as Speedicut has pointed out to me, comes from the Arabic word for “hash”, which everyone knows means “to work out”. Assassins are known far and wide for their physical fitness and that’s where we get their name.
…
Well that wraps up Tuesday Trivia! Did you like it? Hate it? Comments below will be happily answered or roundly mocked, your choice.
Okay! I’ve been doing this daily-themed blogging thing for nearly 4 days and, well, it’s pretty intense. Here’s the numbers rundown thus far.
Days missed: One (Sci-Fry Fiday)
Excuse For Day Missed: Forgot. Err, ahem, I mean, I forgot because I was helping… orphans… blind orphans dying from preventable diseases… get into… college… I mean, super-college.
Daily-Themed Blog Posts Posted A Day Late: All of ‘em… except the one you’re reading right now! Oh yeah! Woot, baby!
Daily-themed Blog Posts Written While Still A Little Inebriated From Jell-O Shots With The Elderly: One, that I remember. (Saturday’s gripping review of “The Jell-O Shot“)
Bonus Blog Posts: One, the zombie-kitten t-shirt post.
Posts About Zombie Kittens: One. But I feel like I just covered this.
Well, I think I’ve given the phrase “flying by the seat of my pants” new (heterosexual) meaning. And now for the afore-promised mini-rant:
I like learning new words. Not because knowing big words makes me appear smart (my glasses do that), but because I just love words: how they’re put together, their evil powers of manipulation, how they’re pronounced, their etymology, etc. It’s a small pleasure for me, knowing how and when to use “superfluous” and “rusticate” and “agog”, among other cromulent words.
This amorous affinity for acquiring and committing to memory additional lexemes leads me to consult the dictionary pretty frequently. I flip the pages (or click my way toward dictionary.com) with palpable exuberance and run the tip of my finger down the page to the entry I’m seeking and, lo and behold, I have found it! And it’s, well…
numinous \NOO-min-us; NYOO-\, adjective: 1. Of or pertaining to a numen.
…
Seriously? That’s ridiculous. That’s what you say when you’re a poser who uses big words and don’t know exactly what they mean. “Oh, yeah, uh, exultation means ‘having to do with or pertaining to exult’.” That’s really lame, dictionary. That’s lamer than FDR’s legs.
And, yes, I know that all I have to do is read the second definition to know that numinous means “characterized by the sense of a supernatural presence”, but if the second definition is far more helpful, then why didn’t they put it first? First is number one, the best, the prime, man! The more helpful definition should undoubtedly be the first definition listed.
Augh! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
Yeah, kind of like that. </end rant>
He’s a kitten! He’s dead! He’s irresistible! Also, he doesn’t want to outright ask for your brains, but maybe, if you had some you weren’t using (zing!), he could haul them away for you, perhaps?
Mrs. Hokeblarg had never seen this before just today, which is pretty strange considering that she is such a total LOTR nerd. This woman insisted that we wait until the extended versions came out before we bought the LOTR DVDs and enjoys watching them back to back to back.
That’s the extended version of an already 3-hour long film. Holy effing Middle-Earth endurance challenge, batman. Anyway, please enjoy this much shorter internet classic song sensation.
Here’s some interesting facts about J. Double-R Tolkien of which you may not be aware.
I’m pretty sure that last one is true, but I can’t cite a reference. Oh, wait. Here it is in my Encyclopedia of Bad-Assery (Fourth Edition). Right next to this article on BOO-YAH.
The Thing: The Jell-O Shot
The Circumstances: I’ve returned home now after having been pretty charming (we don’t like to say the “drunk” word) three times in the same day, at the same location, at two separate parties. My wife’s grandparents threw a Christmas brunch and then, later, a Christmas dinner/gift-exchange at the social club in the center of the predominantly elderly mobile home park in which they live. These are the same people who threw this bacchanalian dance-party. These are some hard-drinkin’ old folks.
Mrs. Hokeblarg and myself, having been up late the previous night playing Wii Sports Resort 100-pin bowling and drinking egg-nog at the wife’s Aunt’s house, arrived bleary-eyed and whatever the opposite of bushy-tailed might be, at the Christmas brunch. I was wearing the same clothes from the day before because, well, that’s the sort of compromise I have to make with myself when I have to show up somewhere early.
Me: Brain, we’ve got to be somewhere for breakfast tomorrow morning.
Brain: Well, I want to sleep in tomorrow. So, uh, no.
Me: There’ll be food! And a party! And maybe drinks!
Brain: Booze in the morning? No way. I’ve heard that lie before.
Me: Yeah, but mimosas, brain. It’s a brunch cocktail. Socially acceptable, dude.
Brain: Errr…. alright, fine. But I want at least six hours of sleep.
Me: No can do, B. We have to wake up in five hours to have enough time to get showered and dressed.
Brain: (thinking) Alright, here’s how we’re gonna do this: sleep until the last possible minute, ignore the wife telling you wake up, dowse yourself in cologne on the way out the door, throw on a different jacket than the one you wore last night, and no one will be the wiser. Except for me. I’m the wiser.
Me: That’s why we’re such a great team. (Mental fist-bump.)
Upon arriving at the social club, I had a mimosa. Then a light breakfast of mimosas. Then two more mimosas. Then the wife couldn’t finish her mimosa, so I drank that. Then someone left their mimosa unattended. Then everything went sparkley for a bit. Then there was some unpleasant cleaning to be done, but that went by pretty quick. I did what I do best: got out of everyone’s way.
(It should be noted that I intended to Twitter what I was pretty sure was going to be an interesting day via my wife’s kick-ass phone, but this plan fell apart after the third mimosa, with my tweet, “thnx effing goodness 4 mimosas, LOLcat!”. Yeah, I’m eloquent like that.)
After a long nap back at the grandparent’s, the wife and I went back to the social club for the evening party. There was an open bar. My brain let out a noise of sheer glee and we fist-bumped, locked it down, and then Spock high-fived.
A drink was shoved in my hand by an old winking gentleman. It was scotch and 7-Up. When I was finished with it, someone else asked me what I wanted.
“I’ll have that…” I said, pointing to my empty plastic cup, “…again.” And it was done.
The evening progressed and I kept pace with everyone around me. I think I may have assisted in a real-estate sale or perhaps I told someone that we’d go bowling together soon. I vaguely recall teaching someone how to play cribbage (a game I don’t actually know how to play). I was complimented on my beard several times, and two women (the Wife’s aunts, I think) even ran their fingers through it. I do, in fact, remember going up on stage and playing bass guitar on several classic country songs with the band that was playing. I’m pretty sure they invited me up there. I don’t really know any country songs and can’t exactly remember the songs we played.
Later, when the night was in full swing, I began to lose my buzz. Suddenly I could only speak English again and didn’t know sign-language. I also lost my degree in theoretical physics. Then, my wife’s grandmother’s youngest son arrived bearing nearly 100 Jell-O shots.
Now, I’m pretty sure that most people reading my blog know what a Jell-O shot is, but just in case, here you go: It’s Jell-O gelatin dessert, in a small, disposable cup, made with booze instead of water. It slides down the back of your throat like a sweet raw oyster and then, seconds later, burns a small boozey hole in the pit of your stomach. Roughly two minutes after you take the shot, it hits your bloodstream. Two minutes is usually enough time to say “Oh-my-god, that’s so good. I could barely taste the alcohol. May I have another?” and then consume approximately twelve more. Jell-O shots are sneaky like that.
I gave up Jell-O shots years ago. I left them well in my past, along with jungle juice (a hollowed-out watermelon filled with booze), Jager-bombs (a shot of Jagermeister dropped into a glass of Guinness and then drank very quickly), and body-shots (where you attempt to imbibe a shot of liquor that’s held precariously by a… errr… well, if you haven’t had a body shot by now, you’ve probably missed the boat on that one).
So, there I was, in a semi-circle consisting of myself, my lovely young wife, my wife’s grandparents, and three women in their late 80’s, taking tequila Jell-O shots.
How Was It? Didn’t you just read that story? I was getting really charming with my wife’s grandparents and three elderly women. Oh, what a night. That was about two hours ago.
The Verdict: Fact: The Jell-O shot recipe was passed down to us by the ancient Romans, who also gave us jousting, parliamentary government, and orange soda. Fact: Jell-O shots are highly underrated and have the ability to bridge generational gaps. Fact: Jell-O shots make you want to proclaim things as “facts” a lot. Fact: fact. Fact: fact.
Also, I don’t know how this rumor got started or gained ground so quickly, but I did not, I repeat, DID NOT… do a body-shot off of one of those old ladies.
I think.
*passes out*
Yeah, yeah. I know it’s late. But it’s probably Thursday somewhere, he says with a sly grin and a wink that sends it over the top, from suave to creepy.
Click the picture to buy the shirt, Tolstoy.
So, here’s the thing. Lately I have been playing it fast and loose with this blog o’ mine and I’ve now decided that I need some discipline in my writing schedule. I’m Twittering regularly, I’m writing my novel regularly, and I’m writing freelance technology articles (praise be to Ganesh) pretty regularly now too. The one place where I’m failing like a cool kid in math class is on my blog, which is a damn shame, because I’ve put a lot of time into it, time I might have otherwise spent getting into shape or actually learning Chinese algebra instead of just complaining about how hard it is.
I’ve nurtured this baby from a fledgling all the way to being a…. err… a baby pterodactyl. I’ve carefully guided this blarg’s membranous wings into a steady readership of mainly mustache and fencing fetishists, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to squander the fleeting attention of my “fans” which I like to imagine as a rag-tag.
So I’ve decided to make a schedule to encourage me to blog every mother-loving day. And here it is, the schedule which I just thought up, just now.
Rant Monday/Meta Monday – Where I blog about something that’s been weighing heavily on my mind (annoying me) or, failing that, where I write about the blog or blogging or possibly boating.
Trivial Knowledge Tuesday – Holy carp, am I filled with some useless effing knowledge. It’s time for me to share my braintacular runoff.
Accolades Wednesday – A day for showing appreciation. People, ideas, groups of people and ideas; none shall be spared the honeyed ax of appreciation.
T-Shirt Thursday - Yeah, I’ve got a backlog of t-shirt ideas I need to work on. One every Thursday, minimum.
Futuristic Friday - Here is where I’ll be talking about upcoming awesome. Flying cars, the robot apocalypse, etc.
The Saturday Review - Every Saturday I’ll choose something to review. Could be a video game, could be a new Pringles flavor. Probably will be booze, though.
Lazy Sunday – Just to give you an idea how lazy I want Sunday’s post to be, I didn’t try to think up something clever. Instead I just hijacked the name of a song I like by Lonely Island. Seriously, Sunday’s post was this close to being called “I’m On A Boat Sunday”. I imagine this will be a photo-post.
So, that’s the plan. And like all great plans, I’m starting first thing tomorrow. Ciao!
