Drive-By Blogging 4: Return of the Blog
A few of the things that've grabbed my attention in the last couple days:
- First, a non-linky event from Real Life: I got into a dispute with a pandhandler Monday because -- get this -- I gave him too much money. The bum in question was one of the Main Street Regulars, a tall, thin guy with pale blue eyes and a greasy ZZ Top beard. He's one of the friendlier homeless guys, who always has a cheerful "Morning, brother!" (or "sister," as may be appropriate) for anyone who makes eye contact with him. (The "brother" thing always make me think of Desmond on Lost, which could be why I find this particular vagabond non-threatening, because I like Desmond.) Anyway, yesterday "Desmond" asked me if I could spare 35 cents so he could get a Coke. I had a dollar in my pocket and a song in my heart, so I handed over the single, thinking I was giving the guy a great boon. Desmond didn't see it that way. He said he only needed 35 cents. He offered to get me change. I told him that wasn't necessary, he could have it all. He said a dollar was of no use to him, he only needed 35 cents. We went around in this circle two or three times before I finally decided we were having a major failure to communicate and said, "Keep it, man, I've got to get to work." I walked away. I felt his reproachful eyes all the way to the crosswalk. I'm still wondering what his problem was...
- Moving on, the TV Squad has gotten an early look at the pilot episode of Sci-Fi's Flash Gordon re-do. Their verdict? Cautious optimism. However, the reviewer admits up front that he "went into this updated version of Flash Gordon with basically zero knowledge of the character and its many previous incarnations"; I, of course, will be judging the series with a significantly different set of parameters, so I don't find this reviewer's opinion very trustworthy. But your mileage may vary...
- I've already been scooped on this next item (Jaquandor, Greenberg, and Wil Wheaton have all posted about it), but you never know who's reading what out there on this series of tubes, so I'm going to mention it, too: Danica McKellar, the woman who played young Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years (one of my all-time favorite TV shows, incidentally), done grew up to be pretty dang smart (she's got a BS in Mathematics), and she wants today's young girls to follow in her footsteps instead of Paris Hilton's. She's written a book called Math Doesn't Suck, and she advises girls that "cute and dumb isn't as good as cute and smart." I couldn't agree more, Danica. Smart women are hot! Check out Danica's official web site for more information about her book, her recent acting jobs, and, of course, math. Not to mention more photos...
- I'm a little late on this item as well, so you've probably already heard: famed European directors Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni both died on Monday. While I respect them and their reputations enough to note their passing, I have to admit -- at risk of losing all credibility as any kind of serious film lover -- that I've never been a fan of either. Even at the height of my college-days film-school-snobbery, I just never got "art films." I could admire their visual beauty and technical creativity, but I never enjoyed them. Not, of course, that they were meant to be enjoyed, at least not in the same sense as a Thin Man comedy-mystery. But when you can describe movies, as Sean Means does in blogging about Antonioni as "slow, deliberate, oblique films with shots that lingered on his star's impassive faces," well, that's just not my bag, baby. I'd much rather see an example of Hollywood craftsmanship at its finest, Casablanca, say, or The Godfather, or even, yes, the original Star Wars. Hell, for that matter, I'd rather watch a Rober Corman B-movie or an old exploitation flick. My personal taste runs much more to movies than cinema.
But then, there is something to be said for a film whose core image -- that of a man playing chess with Death himself in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable -- has become so deeply embedded in our cultural sub-conscious that even people who've never even heard of The Seventh Seal responded to a parody in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. For that simple pleasure, we really must thank Bergman...
- There a web site out there called monsterbymail.com, which is exactly what it sounds like: you can commission an original work of art depicting the monster du jour (flesh-eating Romero-style zombies at the moment), which will then be mailed to you. You can even send the artist a photo of yourself, and he'll transmogrify you into an unspeakable thing. Which is exactly what one of my co-workers did for her husband as a birthday present. Here's a video of the poor guy getting zombified:
Incidentally, I dig the music playing over the video; it's a song called "Drunk Tonight" By The Bloody Irish Boys.
- And finally, an item from the local police blotter: Utah County's resident celebrity Gary Coleman was cited for disorderly conduct the other day. You may recall I had a near-encounter with Mr. Coleman myself a while back, and elected not to bother him. I'm thinking perhaps that was a wise decision...
Comments
Thank you for the update on "Winnie". I've forwarded the website to Ash Lee and will be purchasing said book for her. Love stuff like this and want my daughters to both NOT follow in ANY trainwreck footsteps.
Posted by: steph | August 2, 2007 8:18 AM
I really hope they don't, Steph, and I'm glad to provide any help toward that goal that I can... even if it's just a link to a web page! :)
Posted by: jason | August 2, 2007 9:38 AM
I think between Ash Lee's dad, stepmom, Mike, and I, Ash and Krys will do really well. I'm not so much worried about Krys as Ash Lee, but even being brought up in the same household you can't expect siblings to be the very same. Kryssy is my strong, overly smart, little rocket, and Ash Lee is my little drama queen. Amazing the differences in the two, but also amazing is how much they really do love each other. Hmmm. Off the subject, just something I ran across that you might wanna check out. They are now making a "Lego Indiana Jones Video Game". Slated to come out summer 2008. What next?
Posted by: steph | August 2, 2007 12:03 PM