Taking a break from the numbingly bad jargon I’ve been proofreading all day, I see that media critic Jaime J. Weinman has written an insightful appreciation of the TV sitcoms of the 1960s, spelling out the reasons why he’s been won over by them.
Among other things, he notes that:
I was probably typical of college English majors in that I imagined my life would be suffused with beautiful prose and urbane conversation. You know, that whole Dead Poets Society kind of vibe. Instead, I spend my days reading stuff like this:
Role-based access control empowers granular access to specific resources within an administrative domain.
I was going to say something sarcastic and pithy here at the end, but I find that words fail me. No doubt they’ve been sucked from my brain by the swirling black hole of aesthetic awfulness that is technical marketing language…
I’m somewhat disappointed that the goofy music video I posted the other day didn’t draw more of a response from my three loyal readers, but I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes. Not every entry can be a winner.
Still, I thought the “Trapped in the Web of Love” clip was interesting enough to warrant some googling, to see if I could figure out what the heck that thing was supposed to be and where it came from. It turns out that my campy little curiosity has a pretty interesting history…
And now, as a public service to all those who don’t have the time or inclination to wade through my long, self-indulgent ramblings about why I like the movies I like but who still harbor a certain voyeuristic curiosity about the subject, here are the titles only, in convenient list format:
Sorry I’ve been something of a tease with this whole movie-list thing. Inexcusable of me, I know; it’s just that it’s been one of those kinds of weeks, the only kind I ever seem to have anymore. But the task must be completed, so, without further delay, here is the rest of my personal Top Fifty:
[And if you don’t know what all this list-talk is all about, read Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding.]
Here’s a little something for you history buffs who have plenty of disposable income: Via Boing Boing, I see that someone has what appears to be a genuine Enigma cipher machine up for auction on eBay.
The Enigma was, of course, the cryptographic device famously used by the Nazis during World War II to generate coded messages. It also happens to be a cool-looking artifact of the pre-electronic world; I’d love to have one of these things in my curio cabinet! (Hint hint, if there are any really generous and wealthy people reading my humble blog…)
I know you’re all waiting on tenterhooks for the second half of my All-Time Favorite Movies list, but this was too good not to share immediately. For years, I heard whispered tales about Fred and Barney hawking Winston cigarettes back in the days when The Flintstones was running in primetime, but I’d never seen any actual evidence of it. When the news went out that the show would be released on DVD, there was much fanboy speculation about whether the legendary commercial would be included as an extra, and much disappointment when it was not. Some people even suggested that the whole thing was apocryphal, that it never happened.
But it did. And here’s your proof:
I love weird little pop-culture artifacts like this…
[Ed. note: I found this clip courtesy of Mark Evanier; if you’re interested, he offers a brief history of this commercial, The Flintstones, and some other primetime cartoons here.]
As the title suggests, I thought I’d take a quick break from the All-Time Favorite movie list to post this reassuring tidbit of news:
I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.
If you haven’t already, read Part 1 of this three-part entry. And now without further delay, here are my personal faves:
As I was thinking about what to say in my 500th entry, it occurred to me that there are several topics I’ve long wanted to write about, and in some cases have even started writing about, but, for one reason or another, they’ve never seen the light of day. Take, for example, the subject of my All-Time Favorite Movies, a fairly obvious bit of small-talk that I promised to share way back in my third entry, just over two years ago. If you’ve been sitting around waiting for this one to appear, you’ve had a long wait.