Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Nerd Test

I find this highly unsettling:



This is frankly the first time in my life that any entity, when presented with the opportunity, chose to not call me a nerd. I don't quite know what to do here. I know about four people, and two of them are directly responsible for my birth! I worked for NASA! I own action figures! I took an Internet test about being a nerd, and then I posted on my blog about it!

Then there's this news, which is further confirmation of said nerd-dom, as well as confirming my grand life design of whining at every turn.

Wait-- maybe I need to take the Loser Test...

by the way, you're reading a blog post about a person you don't know who took an Internet test about being a nerd, and then posted on her blog about it, assuming she is indeed a she at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Commentary

Hey, kids, do you like the DVD commentaries?

This is what makes me buy copies of movies I have already previously owned in at least nine different forms. There will be no resting until I've watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade against the backdrop of commentary from Spielberg's beard-groomer.

Sometimes you learn things. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes the commentary track make you hate, brutally hate, a movie once enjoyed (looking very hard at you, Kevin Smith, and the track you did for the tenth anniversary of Clerks, in which I was treated to thirty minutes of the sweet, sweet sounds of you and Jason Mewes consuming the box lunches delivered to you on-mike.)

Surprisingly excruciating was the commentary for the restored version of My Fair Lady, which focused sharply what every musical fan aches for more of: Extended discussions of negative cutting and print sizes. The first words of the track are a seventeen-minute monologue entitled "This, of Course, Is a Fastax to C-Mount Adapter, But Obviously the Wollensak Raptar Telephoto Is Optimal."

Possibly the commentators got all techno because when they attempted anything else, it came out like this:

"The actor who played Freddy just had his fifty-seventh wedding anniversary."

(Pause)

(Pause)

(Pause)

(Pause)

"He must be really old."

(I otherwise recommend the My Fair Lady DVD, however, because the print restoration now allows us to fully appreciate the pulsating wallpaper in Henry Higgins' townhouse. It is truly amazing wallpaper. It takes over the entire movie. Prints and stripes and swirls... it needs to have its own stream in the credits, or, at minimum, a duet with Pickering)

This was only slightly better than the pain inflicted upon me by the director's commentary on Wayne's World, which largely consisted of the following: "Uh-oh! Garth just fell off his chair! Haha! Well, let's see what happens next."

I cannot abide the tracks in which the commentators narrate the action unfolding in front of you ("Okay, now he's running away from the building, and now he's... yeah, that's the part with the lemur that hails a cab.") Give me a microphone and a handful of Fritos and a hundred thousand dollars. I'll do it.

watch, watch right here, this is the precise moment in which Lucas destroys the franchise at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Competent Official College Professor UPDATES

1) Yesterday I ducked into the lav to take care of Lady Business, and as I was washing my hands, I had the following thought: "Well, that's odd. Why would they put a urinal in the womens' bathroom?"

...

...

...Oh.

2) Today I ducked into Staples to buy a package of address labels and take care of Professor Business, and found that the printing quote for the Professor Business was way, way lower than I initially thought it would be. So I clutched my address labels and jumped up and down and walked across the parking lot.

Hey-- aren't these supposed to be in a bag?

...

...

...Oh.

FONT NOTE: I'm sorry about yesterday's font. I'm so, so, sorry. I hope you can learn to live and love again.

tomorrow, Comic Sans at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Monday, November 13, 2006

Does This Font Make Me Look Fat?

I haven't been to Pilates class lately, because Pilates demands discipline and time and energy and the ability to care. I had a lovely nap this afternoon, however.

Perhaps I need Dale. Dale taught the kickboxing class that Julie the NephewsMama and I attended when I lived in Cincinnati, and it bonded us immensely, as sisters, because when Dale enters the picture, you only have each other for safety and comfort.

Dale would simply materialize in the gym; no one ever saw him outside of the context of the aerobics floor, he just sort of appeared, or beamed in from Planet Kickboxing Instructor, or whatever, with his clip-on microphone and his tapes of world-ending music and his shorn legs and arms.

“Oh,” my sister would say as he pulled off his sweatpants, “not the lime green shorts.”

“It is,” I said. “It is indeed Lime Green Shorts Day.”

“HOW ARE YOU FEELING!” Dale would say into his microphone. He did so love his microphone.

“Mmmffpt” class tended to respond, following him into a series of warm-up kicks and light punches.

Dale would then take two steps off of his instructor’s platform. “I SAID, HOW ARE YOU FEELING!”

Julie often chose to applaud rather than disgrace herself further by yelling louder. “YAAAAY!”

He retreated. “Don’t make me come out there!”

My sister and I adjusted our territory on the aerobics floor so that we had enough room to move, but not so much that Dale could accost us should he choose to Come Out There, a horrific experience consisting of Dale, who, when dissatisfied with the quality of excitement issuing from the floor, charged into the class and corraled students at random to throw punches into his outstretched hand. This was accompanied by a stream of shrieked encouragement: “PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH! ARGH! ARGH! PUNCH! PUNCH! COME ON! WHOOOOOOOO!” All eyes were cast pityingly upon you, and sweaty glistening Dale was, like, right there, and you had to touch him, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

We normally withstood two Coming Out Theres per night without personally experiencing Wrath of Dale, but we always moved again during the cool-down exercises, though, to the back of the room, because Dale likes overmuch to splay on the leg stretches, especially when it was Lime Green Shorts Day.

whooooooooo at: mb@blondechampagne.com

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