Hi,
If you wish to start a meme, you really need to follow the Meme Guide to Manners ™.
Rule #1: Don’t include questions that people might be unwilling to answer.
Sample “Don’t” questions
1. What’s the strangest smell you have ever farted?
2. What’s your most embarrassing public moment — be specific.
3. Most disgusting habit?
4. Have you ever fled the scene of a crime?
5. What, exactly, IS your f*cking problem?
Everyone knows the phrase, jumped the shark, right?
Well, I have thought of an alternative to this phrase, and it is also from a 1970’s sitcom produced by Garry Marshall, Laverne & Shirley.
Now, the majority of visitors at Jumptheshark.com agree that the show really started sucking when they moved Laverne, Shirley and the gang from Milwaukee to California.
Then, I thought. How about this as an alternative phrase to “jumped the shark” — “moved to California”.
Here’s a sample of an exchange using this alternative catchphrase:
Person 1: Boy, E.R. really moved to California when they killed off Anthony Edwards.
Person 2: What do you mean? I think they have always shot E.R. in California, with only the occasional exteriors shot in Chicago.
Person 1: No, no, that’s not what I mean.
This post comes to you courtesy of the fact that I am waiting for seepage to stop in my basement. Wet vac, take a break, wet vac, take a break.
I have learned a few things with this experience.
1. If you can you avoid it, don’t have living space in your basement.
2. If you’re buying a house from some shady Eastern Europeans, make sure it’s not during a drought.
3. They moved the cemetery but they didn’t move the bodies! THEY ONLY MOVED THE HEADSTONES!!!
Performing a web search for symbols via Google, where nothing happens.
There are no results, not even an acknowledgment that you perfomed a search.
Symbol searches that return results.
_ (underscore)
&
Symbol searches that acknowledge you searched for it, but yielded no results.
*
It is YOUR responsibility dear reader, to further investigate the full gamut of ASCII symbols that I am too lazy to complete.
Don’t forget to retry all the symbols by searching on Google News, Google Blogs, and Chinese Google.
I want a double-spaced, heavily-footnoted report on my desk by tomorrow morning at the latest.
GO!
Something to counteract the negativity of my “He Better Be Dead” post.
If gorilla-on-gorilla violence can be considered positive.
This is old news, I know, but I saw Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for the first time last night when it aired on PBS.
I had followed the Enron case, but there were things that I learned of that I hadn’t known. For example, Enron traders actually had some of their power plants shut down under various false pretenses during the rolling blackouts in California in order to artificially inflate the cost of electricity they were passing on to you, the consumer. They have some audio of traders patting themselves on the back and laughing — it’s really beyond my ability to comment on it, it’s so horrid.
This kind of crime just makes me boil with rage. Someday this kind of crap will hopefully be seen as just one notch above child molester. Maybe when we stop worshipping the almighty buck.
Often times I’ll mishear song lyrics and merrily sing the wrong words.
Even when I learn they aren’t the right words, it would take a nuclear bomb covered in salsa to get me to stop using the lyrics I first thought I heard.
So, here’s the first installment in a continuing series of lyrics that only exist in my head.
Moby – Natural Blues
What I Hear/Say
Oh no, trouble with God
Oh no, trouble with God
Actual lyrics
oh lordy, trouble so hard
oh lordy, trouble so hard
Harry Belafonte – The Banana Boat Song
What I Hear/Say
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas
Highly deadly black tarantula
Actual lyrics
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas
Hides the deadly black tarantula
As I mentioned before, they are shooting a scene for the new Batman film The Dark Knight near where I work.
As I was hoofing it to Union Station to catch the train home yesterday evening, a police officer stopped me from my usual walking route on Canal Street. The Dark Knight production had a couple block radius cordoned off around the old Chicago Post Office. I was kind of irked by this as I would have to go out of my way to get to the train station and did not want to miss my train. As I walked up Clinton Street, I briefly looked down Van Buren to see what was going on. At that time a black helicopter whooshed off the ground into the sky from the corner of Canal and Van Buren. Cooooooool.
My annoyance was replaced with a “gee whiz” kind of feeling.
I have worked on a couple movies before, as a production assistant, as an electrician, and once as a jack-of-all-trades on a low budget 16mm feature film I was doing with a friend of mine. There’s something really appealing about being a part of a film production, particularly when you are shooting “on location.” It’s like being part of this self-contained world which seems to defy the traditional conventions and logic of good ol’ fashioned reality.
One time I was working on a film where there was a dialogue scene in the middle of a cornfield. I was there for several hours as they were filming. There’s a lot of downtime as things are readied and perfected prior to them actually starting the cameras rolling, so I’m just standing there, thinking…
I am standing in a cornfield…
I am standing in a cornfield…
I am standing in a cornfield…
Something about that, that I was part of some beast that was, for its own reasons, hunkering down in a cornfield for a few hours, just struck me as really neat. I have felt the same way when I have been part of film shoots in businesses — offices, restaurants, bars, etc. Often times I have met the real owners and workers of establishments we are filming in, and I get a sense of excitement from them when we are there as well. I am possibly misinterpreting the excitement vibe I get (maybe they’re hoping being in a movie will help out with business, for example) but the way I think about it is someone you don’t know has entered your place of work and suggests everyone go out and play a spontaneous kickball game.
My film experience is pretty paltry compared to most people who make a career out of the movie business, but I did have something amusing happen to me that others might not regularly experience. The 16mm feature film I mentioned was all done in various locations around Chicago, and we didn’t have any permits to shoot anywhere. We were out on Columbus Drive near Buckingham Fountain shooting a scene where a character is on a pay phone. Across this big street was a large number of trucks, people, some police cars, etc. We eventually realized it was another film shoot, but not a dinky one like ours.
A production assistant (P.A.) from their crew yelled at us from across the street, “GET YOUR SHOT!” — as in finish up, you film hoboes, because WE are filming here.. We noticed a guy with a large rolled-up newspaper sticking out of his back pocket, and we realized it was Kyle Chandler, and the cast and crew was from the CBS show Early Edition, whose bubble we were bumping against. It would have been nice if the P.A. could have personally walked over and cut off our balls, but he probably was busy doing other things.
So, if you have an opportunity to be on a film, as an extra, etc., give it a try. It will be freaking boring and there will be lots of waiting, but you might catch some of this “joyful bubble” feeling. Just make sure you don’t set any buildings on fire.
Okay, one more freaking meme to get out of my system, this one is about movie theaters.
I did a quick blog search for movies and I saw an existing meme about film, and I’m gonna overlap for just a few of the questions. I am deeply sorry for the overlap, but this is a Movie Theater specific set of questions and I gots to ask them.
First movie you saw in a theater?
Last movie you saw in a theater?
Crappiest moviegoing theater experience?
Best moviegoing theater experience?
What’s a movie you *have* to see on the big screen?
Have you even seen the same movie more than once in the same day?
Have you ever snuck into a theater to see a movie?
Ever walked out on a movie?
Movie snack of choice?
First movie you saw in a theater?
I remember going to a drive-in double feature with my family, where Jaws was the second film after some crappy thing I don’t remember. I freaking fell asleep before Jaws started, so I guess I can’t count that. It’s probably best that I fell asleep. I was afraid of my own shadow back then.
Star Wars is the first movie that I definitely saw in the theater and didn’t fall asleep. Other movies I remember from my green years — the crappy Roger Moore Bond movie Moonraker, and The Villain (with Kirk Douglas, Ann-Margret and Arnold Schwarzenegger!). Of course I am saying “crappy” in retrospect. They were the absolute coolest things when I first saw them. A wristwatch that shoots darts? A live-action version of the Coyote/Roadrunner saga? Damn!
Last movie you saw in a theater?
Grindhouse. All six and a half hours of it.
Crappiest moviegoing theater experience?
Well, I have seen 5 year old kids chasing each other during a 9:30pm showing of an R-rated movie, I’d had people smoking cigarettes in front of me, but both these things were expected because I was seeing movies in a cheap theater. I would say that the a-hole looking at his extremely bright cell phone during the entire duration of The History of Violence I paid full price for would count as the crappiest experience in recent memory. He was sitting smack-dab in the center of the aisle, and close enough to the screen that I didn’t want to move in front of him. And the thing was, I was afraid to ask him to stop messing with his phone because the movie was giving me the heebie-jeebies about some possible violent altercation ensuing.
Best moviegoing theater experience?
It’s really great living around a big city sometimes. I really enjoy seeing classic movies I missed when they first came out, and especially movies that prolly would not have been available for me to see even if I was around when they were released. I have seen a lot of great movies at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago — I was especially excited to see a kind of obscure Roman Polanski movie, Cul De Sac.
What’s a movie you *have* to see on the big screen?
When I finally got to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on a big screen, I was really bowled over. If you haven’t seen that one sequence in space with “The Blue Danube” music behind it on the big screen, for God’s sakes try to. The Road Warrior is also incredible on the big screen, too.
Have you even seen the same movie more than once in the same day?
I’m curious how many people have done this. I have done it twice. Once for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and once for GoodFellas. I was just so excited when I saw these movies for the first time that I had to see them again the same day.
Have you ever snuck into a theater to see a movie?
I think I have snuck in after seeing a dollar movie to catch the last 20 minutes of another, but I don’t know if you could technically count that as having snuck in. I’m kind of a wuss.
Ever walked out on a movie?
I did this once, for the movie Apt Pupil by Bryan Singer. It just struck a really negative chord with me. I just found it really offensive.
Movie snack of choice?
Salty – buttered popcorn, preferably in a tub (all food should be available in tubs!). Sweet – plain M&Ms. And Coca-Cola to drink.
So I tag:
lulu
dale
Coaster Punchman
and
beth
I would tag bubs again, but that’s plain rude to tag someone twice in a row, right? Consider this a non-tagging tag.
If you s’wanna tag yourself, please do so. I do so love enjoying other people enjoying the cinema.
I come from a long line of intentional mispronouncers. A favorite catchphrase of my dad’s is “Hope to sh*t in your mess kit!” spoken in the same context and tone of voice as “Have a nice day.” I still have no idea what the hell it means.
My dad is also big with the spoonerisms, and permanently scarred my older brother by having him learn the phrase “Chi Chi Boo Boo” when waving goodbye to a train. Needless to say, I did not fare much better than my brother.
So, I am now stuck with a habit of intentionally mispronouncing words in casual conversation.
I couldn’t find any word to describe this concept, so I’m making one up. A stiglet — an intentionally mispronounced word.
There’s really only one stiglet that I can use quite a bit, and believe me, I use it quite a bit. Click on the word to hear how it sounds coming out of my piehole.
The rest I use when I can, but they don’t come up that often.
fajitas
psychiatrist
pneumonia (you see where this is going don’t you?)
On very rare occasions, I’ll hear a word mispronounced and adopt it as my own. Here’s a favorite of mine: