Daily: 2008 Archives

I guess this is a milestone of sorts for me. Carlin is the first celebrity I've cared about to die. And today I am genuinely sad that his mocking comedy will now forever be in reruns.

I saw Carlin perform in Seattle when I first moved here, with my best friends Sean and Kristen. It was a brilliant show, and will always remain in my head as the moment when I first realized that I wasn't in Salt Lake City anymore - that I had finally escaped, and Seattle was such a great place to be living instead.

And I was in the audience for MadTV when they recorded the laugh track for his Touched By An Atheist. If you hear a really loud, high-pitched squeal of delight all through the bit - yup, that's me.

There is a great tribute page for him on The Onion AV Club. Many fans have left their (appropriate) condolences and I recommend the long, but fascinating, 2005 interview.

And let me add the memoriam my wonderful (and sarcastic) Significant Other contributed this morning: "He's with the angels now." LOL.

I just finished reading The Portrait. It was... disturbing. It was written very like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a meandering journal of observations with plot thrown in on the side. And the plot was good, but I think the novel stood on its own without it - maybe even stood *better* without the finality of the story - just because the musings were so frighteningly perceptive.

Excerpt 1:

To impose yourself, to take the public by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking; to scream in its provincial little ear that I am a genius. And if you scream loud enough and long enough, it believes you.

Excerpt 2:

"It's like an addiction," she said. "I go mad if I can't use my hands. It's all I have, the only thing that makes it worthwhile getting out of bed in the morning."

I saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, and I know everyone is gonna mock me, but I really liked it. Of course, I liked Stargate and The Mummy too, and I know those are both hated by all you jaded post-modernist cynics. But I hated the Star Wars fiasco, so it's not just that I have low standards and am easily entertained (although that is probably true...).

I watch the trilogy fairly often (I saw Last Crusade a week ago), and it really felt to me that this sequel was pretty much just like the other three (well, better than Temple of Icky Things, which was kinda stupid): it was B-movie fun, fast-paced silliness, no real surprises, and a lot of over-the-top action/acting. Sure, it was missing Tom Stoppard's dialogue in #3 and the small-budget hilarity of #1, but it had its own wacky hijinks.

Personally, I only wished it could have been longer. I felt like the comedy had to take a backseat to the plot, while I would have loved some more pointless bickering and silly car chase scenes.

It does puzzle me that people are so vitriolic in their loathing of this movie. Is this a peer-driven attempt at being cool by pretending nothing is good enough for you? Are American audiences turning into hyper-critical self-important back-seat directors? Can't you just settle in and have a little fun? Or are you one of those miserable bastards that go to Disneyland and spend the whole time bitching about the omnipresent branding and overpriced kitsch?

From the Onion commenters:

God literally popped out of a box to melt nazi faces in raiders. if you can suspend your belief for that, interdimesional, poorly rendered, non-aliens shouldn't be an issue.

You know, I spend every trip to SLC the same way. The first day I think how crazy the place is, remembering all the weird stuff that I'd forgotten like how the radio stations all play exactly the same music that they did 15 years ago, and the drivers in the white sedans always want to drive you off the road - or worse, enforce the speed limit. The third day in SLC I spend thinking that I miss everyone and I wish I could move back so I could see them more. And I spend the last day wondering why the hell I stayed so long and promising myself that I will never, ever come back unless absolutely required. Ha!

My favorite moment from the trip (of which I didn't get a photo - doh!) was the giant black Toyota 4Runner SUV in front of me at Starbucks. With the license frame: "Give more, consume less." LOL.

And while Jeffrey and his brother were out joyriding in brother's luxe BMW, I had some fun taking pictures of the creepy pony. Jeffrey's brother has this 4-foot animatronic pony which is, without doubt, the scariest toy I have ever encountered. I kept turning to look at it the entire morning, expecting it to be secretly advancing on us, ala Blink. So I had a bit of stop motion fun when they weren't around and let Jeffrey discover it on his own when reviewing the day's camera shots.

Today I am exhausted from lack of sleep and not a little sick from all the eating and drinking. I'm too old to have that much fun without paying for it in a big way afterwards. And my skin was pretty unhappy with all the extra sun and dry air. I feel like my whole face has inflated and turned cherry red. :( What I really need is a few weeks of rain to recover - but of course Seattle is sunny today.

From the Seattle PI: Utah fine-tunes complicated liquor laws. Or: Utah makes their liquor laws just as confusing, but in a new and amusing way!

The best quote from this article: "I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these alcopops are directed to our kids. It is a gateway drug." We were asking around the office, a gateway to what? Does Ernst & Julio Gallo really drive kids to crack? Joey said "coffee," which is probably accurate, since most Mormons don't really see a difference between coffee and crack, LOL.

For anyone who has never experienced Utah liquor laws, trust me, you haven't missed your chance. Even though you can *finally* have more than one drink per person at a table now, they can't be of the same liquor. So, a vodka margarita and a tequila margarita are fine, but a vodka martini and a lemon drop are RIGHT OUT. I am assuming you still have to have a special membership card to enter a bar (a "private club"). And although the silliness of selling wine coolers at the special state-run "liquor store" may seem a little extreme to outsiders, the only alcohol ever sold at the grocery store was sub-3.2% beverages (mostly in-state beer and modified Coors), so you pretty much have to go to the liquor store for most alcohol purchases anyway.

I am sooooo looking forward to spending this weekend there. :P