Observations on my downstairs neighbor

Apparently he's such a precious flower that he's called the manager--twice--to complain about my snoring. According to what he told her, it's actually driven him from his home at night, when he takes to the streets in his car rather than...oh just, say, toughening up, the crybaby.

So has anyone got a good snoring remedy?

I don't doubt that he can hear me...because I can hear *him.* (The floors here are thin.) Difference between us, I haven't been whining about it...

The manager just suggested that I move into an open apartment across the hall from where I am now, so he's no longer be right beneath me. I'd rather not do that (I happen to like the views from my windows)...

Sometimes I have to wonder

Do the Democrats--and specifically President Obama--realize that they won the last election?

In Talking Points Memo:

Onward and Downward
... Dems preemptively moving to compromise on tax cut politics? It appears House Democrats may be moving toward accepting half a loaf on the policy front in exchange for conceding the politics to the GOP.

Oh well, it would've been nice if they'd acted like winners for a while (y'know, when they actually were)...but don't worry, they'll be losers again soon enough.

Dear Anti-Mosqueteers...

Do you realize you're coming off so deranged that you're making my man Jigsaw look sane?

Do you care?

I'm not sure about this, but I think it's definitely worth a conversation

E.J. Dionne, to whom I haven't linked in too long, has an interesting idea:

Obama should debate Boehner and McConnell

Oh, god...

I think I just figured something out. For years now, I've been saying (at least in my more cyncial moments) the reason why Republicans always seem to be in a position of strength while Democrats always seem weak is this:

Republicans have accepted and learned to use to their advantage something which Democrats still deny: Most of the people in this country are rock, bone, stick, stone stupid.

Now I think, Democrats (or at least the Obama administration's version of them) have started to catch on to this...but they think it only applies to their base.

This seems just so wrong

This doesn't seem to have hit the news sites...

...but on Facebook Alex Bennett is saying that comedian Robert Schimmel has died in the hospital following this car accident.

A Modest Proposal:

Via the H-Post:

BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Okay, BP, how about this. You don't have to pay any money. However, all your executives are required by law to wear big, impossible-to-mistake letters "BP" at all times. The rest of us are free to beat you bloody with tire irons whenever and however many times we see fit.

Sound good?

Your final reminder

Tomorrow, September 1, is my birthday. My Amazon.com Wish List can be found to the right of these very words.

And if you find these frequent pesterings annoying (I know I would), just wait till October rolls around. Then you're gonna get so many Saw references you'll be begging me to go back to wheedling for some token of your approval--begging, I say!

I want to play a game (and no, this isn't a Saw post)

Those are coming in about a month.

The game I want to play is that I want you to read the opening paragraphs of this news item...

NC farm produces emerald shaped into massive gem

An emerald so large it's being compared with the crown jewels of Russian empress Catherine the Great was pulled from a pit near corn rows at a North Carolina farm.

The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. After the gem was cut and re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the original find, making it slightly larger than a U.S. quarter…....

...and tell me honestly: How many lines into it did you have to get before the words "meteor;" "crystal;" "Superman" and/or "Kryptonite" crossed your mind?

Questions for the Universe

What the hell is Matt Frewer doing not participating in the DVD of Max Headroom: The Complete Series?

Things I've Found In Books: The Tradition continues

Just now, between pages 94 and 95 of the Seattle Public Library's copy of How I Got To Be Whoever It Is I Am, by Charles Grodin...:

It's apparently a prayer card such as is given out at a funeral. There's a photograph on the front of a sculupture I don't know enough to recognize, but it's of a man collapsed in the arms of an angelic-looking woman. Against a blue-sky backdrop.

On the back, it says "In Loving Memory of..." and I won't give the name, but curiously it's the same as a science fiction writer/editor (not the same person, tho) and quotes the 23rd Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for though art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Wait--that's illegal now?

Trial Begins for Actress Accused of Sham Marriage

At least 10% of all the married couples in Hollywood just went: "Uh-oh."

Piranha 3-D is a lowest-common-denominator B-movie

By which I mean: You know how I can take the Saw movies seriously and defend my love for them on an intellectual level (and will, at the drop of a hat)?

This is not that kind of movie. This is the kind of movie the only reason to make is to have fun with it (if you dismiss the cynical motive).

And few of the surprisingly A-list stars--among them Elisabeth Shue,
Jerry O'Connell, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Jessica Szohr, Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss--seem likely to have needed the money.

(Ok, maybe Dreyfuss.)

So I can only surmise that's why they wanted to make it--for the fun.

Some movies that are fun to watch were not fun to make, and vice-versa. I hope this one was both, but I can only speak from once side of the screen.

I haven't seen the Roger Corman-produced "cult classic," to which I guess this is technically the second sequel, but I'm told that Steven Spielberg thought that original Piranha movie, directed by Joe Dante and released in 1978, was the best of the Jaws ripoffs.

Supposedly that's why he hired Dante to direct a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (which was crap, but Dante's was far from the worst of it).

The point is that this movie (directed by Alexandre Aja) has to be at least that good. The only real question to ask about a film like this (or really any) is: Does it work? The answer is yes, it works very well indeed.

Before we conclude I have a quick observation and a brief question. The observation: If Piranha 3-D doesn't get Rhames an Oscar, there is no god.

Now the question: When did the "Flower Duet From Lakme" become de rigueur music for lesbian scenes?

Now back to our entry: There's something to be said about a movie that is exactly, completely, and totally what it is. Piranha 3-D is a lowest-common-denominator B-movie...but it's a good lowest-common-denominator B-movie.

(Even if one--admittedly minor--character does disappear without us ever knowing what happened to him. I'm assuming he was bitten to death off-screen, or in a cut scene which will be added to the DVD)

Dems: What the fuck are you doing?

...scuse me...I have a question I'd like to ask the Democrats...it's in regards to the Mosque thing (which isn't actually a Mosque, and isn't...oh, skip it). The question is this: What the fuck are you doing?

There are few freedoms more central to who we are, or who some of us still think we're supposed to be, than the freedom of religion (or the reverse, freedom from religion, but that's a whole other what-the-fuck-are-you-doing for another frustrating day).

And instead of standing that ground and making that case, you're reacting to people who are, flatly, stupid and racist. As though they were neither.

What the fuck are you doing?

Why is it that when they're worried about an election Republicans run to the right, and Democrats run to the right?

Ahem.

Me, in this blog, on Friday, April 23, 2010:

A young [actress] named Rooney Mara ... bears watching as an up-and-comer.

E! Online yesterday:

Rooney Mara just landed the role of a lifetime as Lisbeth Salander in the much-hyped American version of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. She's set to star alongside Daniel Craig and Robin Wright in the cult favorite book-turned-flick.

She's also got a leading role in the forthcoming Social Network movie, with a screenplay by some unknown named Aaron Sorkin.

Don't tell me I don't know an actress to watch when I see one.

I should also mention that in the case of the audio items...I will gladly accept iTunes gifts.

Ahem. So. In two weeks I will be 39. I intend for this to be the last birthday I will ever acknowledge (it's a Jack Benny thing). So if you've yet to commemorate the date of my birth, or if it's been quite some time, this could well be your last chance.

Do you want to go to your grave knowing you never expressed your affection for me in some material way? I wouldn't think so. So what can you do about it? Funny you should ask.

Look over to your right and you'll find a list of over 20 suggestions--some of them quite reasonably priced.

(The last couple of years or so I've done "countdowns" on my blogs but I don't think I want to do that this year--perhaps mostly because I couldn't think of one...)

Am I the only person who thinks he's wrong about that?

A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.

Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater, on assault and disorderly conduct charges. She has no listed telephone number.

Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."

Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.

"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement Monday afternoon.

Oh, really?

Just a few reminders that the good is coming to outweigh the bad, at least on this issue

1. Gay marriage supporters outnumber foes at rallies.

2. CNN Poll is First To Show Majority Support for Gay Marriage

3. Today in Sex: American Bar Association Says "I Do" to Gay Marriage

And as an aside to our good friends at President Obama's White House...way to drag your feet on an issue when you could've (and should've) been on the cutting edge...

Well.

Now this presents me with a poser. A certain misogynistic conservative (whose name I'm deliberately not mentioning because being talked about is clearly what they want) has proclaimed their disapproval of recent comments made by Jennifer Aniston.

The good-looking star told reporters:

"Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don't have to settle with a man just to have that child. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents' days when you can't have children because you have waited too long."

Said MC has dubbed the curvy Aniston a poor role-model for young girls, as well as "destructive to our society."

Here then is my dilemma. Even acknowledging the fact that someone in Jennifer Aniston's position would presumably be willing and able, as a single mother, to offer this hypothetical child what most moms could not.

As I think any of you who've been reading my blogs for a few years (and god bless you, BTW) know, I don't think single parenthood is such a good idea. The reason? I'm the son of a single parent. I know too well many of the things that can go wrong.

Yet...I just can't take the side of the misogynistic conservative...