1. I say I like classical music, but mostly, I just like the "Greatest Hits" of any given composer. Give me Canon in D or Moonlight Sonata or any of that crap you can get on one cd at Borders for five bucks and mission accomplished. and in keeping with this...
1.5 I can listen to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" pretty much any time of the day or night and still appreciate its pomp and majesty.
2. I have been known to use those free address labels charities send you without making a donation. They're just so damn convenient, and I'm just so damn poor.
3. Sometimes I cut people off when I drive here, but then swear at those who do the same to me. And while I do it, I am aware of my own hypocrisy, and I weep inside.
4. I say incredibly bitchy things about people on TV. Like this one chick on America's Next Top Model who kind of looks like a horse? I totally say she looks like a horse.
5. I sometimes don't recycle stuff that's a real pain in the ass to rinse out, like old peanut butter jars. Sorry, Mother Earth.
6. I totally swallow my gum. In fact, I just swallowed some right now.
7. I hang up on phone solicitors immediatley. I have no sympathy for them at all, even though they are "just doing there jobs". I feel the same about door-to-door evangelists of any kind. No, I do not need a copy of "The Watchtower".
8. I recently did begin flossing for the first time ever, but I do a piss-poor job of it. I floss in about 25 seconds.
9. I do not wash my fruit thouroughly at all. I like pass it under the tap for half a second and then bite down on all those yummy pesitcides and cow shit.
10. If it's night time, and Emmy poos far into the vacant field known as "Pooh Corner", I do not pick it up. This also applies to situations where a hole is found in the bag, or the poo is not of a consistency conducive to neat picking up.
3.06.2008
2.22.2008
Nicole’s Basic Basic Cable Unsolicited Movie Review 1-
What, you ask, is Basic Basic Cable? Oh, kids, it's just swell! It means there is a cable hooked up to my TV causing it to get good reception on network TV channels, as well as 6 dozen Spanish channels and TBS. I don't even get Lifetime, which I think prisons and mental health facilities get. My options are reduced to the point where I actually sit through a great many shitty movies, and so, Nicole's Basic Basic Cable Unsolicited Movie Reviews are born! Time to get Excited!
Today's feature is "A Walk to Remember" starring Mandy Moore and Some Guy. Daryl Hannah is there as well, in a really bad brown wig.
The plot is this: Mandy is your typical highschool edition of the Krazy Khristian- ya know, the minister's daughter who brings the bible to school and listens to OAR. Some Guy plays Landon, a highschool Bad Boy, who listens to generic rock and hangs out with assholes (seriously, his friends are just awful. Even for heathens). So at the start Landon and the Get Along Gang are out at the old factory, where they drink! and swear! and make out! and also dare this dorky guy to jump in a body of water, only to have said dorky guy hurt himself in a vague undisclosed manner and end up in the hospital. Landon is caught at the scene of the 'crime' and put on probation. Probation in this movie is defined as working with disadvantaged youth and being forced to HAVE THE LEAD IN THE SCHOOL PLAY. Maybe this is what I should have done in highschool so I could play Adelaide in Guys and Dolls.
Landon's probation puts him in the path of Mandy, who attempts to befriend/save him on the bus on the way home from Disadvantaged Youth Camp one day. Let me just say at this point, what is it about movie portrayals of Christians and how they dress? I mean, Mandy in this movie is wearing clothes so heinous that one would only expect to see them in a Save-the-Children ad or on Roseanne Barr circa 1993. Seriously, large denim mu-mus and mom-jeans and dingey shapeless sweaters. And she's not supposed to be poor, or retarded, just Christian.
SO blah blah blah, they slowly get to know eachother, and Mandy helps Landon learn his lines, and he disavows her (like Christ!) in front of his friends, and then it's the BIG NIGHT. And they do this play that features the Mandster in a nice dress and makeup singing a pop song apres po of nothing, and little hearts flare in Landon's eyes. {Note: The blocking in this part is unintentionally brilliant, as it is the worst blocking I have ever seen, w/ Mandy sitting down and standing up in her song like she's in Catholic Church; it's actually is quite a lot like a highschool play.}
So then we dick around w/ plot points I don't care to recap and they begin dating and Falling In Love. Landon does all these really charming things to help his socially retarded girlfriend check off items on her "Life's To Do List" and defends her honor to his (rather understandably) non-plussed friends. This part of the movie is actually pretty cute and awful at the same time. Like my pug's face.
And then (spoiler alert) the Big News, Mandy has The Leukemia. And she will die. And I have puked in my own mouth and swallowed it back to where it came from. Landon cries, Mandy cries, I cry for the 2 hours of my life lost forever. And finally, we get our "Walk to Remember" when Landon marries Mandy thus checking off her "Number One thing" on the aforementioned list before she goes off to that big Jars of Clay concert in the sky.
Unfortunate things about this movie: Nearly everything. But specifically:
-1. The dialogue has jarring use of the word "Baby" as in "Baby, I'll never let that happen" which makes these very young characters come off as dated.
-2. Mandy Moore has a slight speech impediment like Eek the Cat.
-3. The soundtrack of Christian Alternative Music, crammed so tightly together that no moment is ever without song. Like, we get 20 seconds of one song, and then 20 seconds of another, with 4 seconds of silence in between.
-4. and, obviously, Raging Predictability at every turn.
Less than unfortunate things about this movie:
-1. Mandy Moore is actually pretty cute, other than the speech impediment thing.
-2. I like the melody of the pop song she sings, if I close my eyes and don't watch the blocking and suspend disbeleif so that the fact that the song is completely out of place doesn't faze me.
-3. Landon's car is cool.
-4. I actually don't feel that Mandy's religion is over-blown after the first half hour of expository choir singing/bible carrying. It's still the third wheel in their love triangle, but it's not as overt as I imagined it would be.
So there you have it. Not a rental I would recommend, unless you really heart Mandy Moore, or denim mu-mu's, or you're 11. It had a couple of sweet moments, but they were few and far between; kind of like your dog swallowed your favorite necklace and you have to wait until he craps it out and than spray it w/ a garden hose to find it in all the pooh and by then, do you really even want it anymore? Yeah, kind of like that.
So there is my first NBBCUMR (wow, that anagram is unintentionally dirty sounding). Look for more in the future, as financially, I don't see myself getting beyond the Basic Basic connection anytime soon.
1.25.2008
Fantasy Pandas
Audition 605 in my descent into madness where no one can follow.
So it begins w/ a call from my agent saying he has an audition for me for a commerical for a popular Chinese food chain that shall remain nameless. Except that it features pandas and the food comes fast. Immediately, I am in Ironic Town, USA. Population: 1 because I have personal issues with this chain. You see, Gavin loves the food this place dishes out- greasy, hang-over food dripping in faux-Asian sauce. I hate it, because it's gross, and refer to the place as "The Dirty Panda". But since it doesn't exist on the East Coast, Gavin has rekindled his love affair with it's oily charms since we moved back by going at least once a week and dragging my reluctant ass with him. So pretty stinking funny/horrible that I should get a chance to hock this crapola. My life in art.
So I head down to the place and sign in, and on the sign in table is a cup of chopsticks w/ a note that says we should practice using them but not to put them in our mouths because many people would use them all day. I decline chopstick practice, as I have travelled to Asia and would have starved or at least created an international faux pas by using my hands to eat had I not learned to use chopsticks. Also, who does not know how to use chopsticks at this point? I will tell you who- the other girls in the room. They are pinching cheap splinter-laden chopsticks with varying degrees of skill and looking worried. I do not feel bad for them, however, as they are by and large Dutch super-models, and do not need my pity.
We go into the room in pairs. I am paired with a girl named Boblinka. I shit you not. We are to sit in front of the cameras and pick hard candies out of a chinese food carton, pretending that they are pieces of delicious orange chicken. The illusion stops short of our mouths, however, as we are told not to actually place the candies in our mouths. Awesome.
But here's where it really takes off. We are supposed to eat and chat and WATCH THE PANDA BEARS CAVORTING IN THE DISTANCE. These creatures are represented by the casting directors hand, held just behind the camera. We are told to react "just as we normally would to panda bears" and improvise a short scene. We do so. It involves us talking about the cuteness of the hand-pandas. Then we are told to be "really interested" in what the pandas are doing, and then to break out in a "slow smile". Fuck me.
Boblinka was super nice and we commiserated on the bizareness of our lives in the elevator ride down. Then I had to write a check for 3 dollars to the parking attendant because I never have cash. I felt a little like the Dude in the supermarket scene in The Big Lebowski.
I will not get this commercial. But if I do, then I hearbye renounce my ability to understand anything about anything. Because the world is a land of hand-pandas and fake chinese chicken, and there is nothing to do but laugh or kill yourself in such a world.
So it begins w/ a call from my agent saying he has an audition for me for a commerical for a popular Chinese food chain that shall remain nameless. Except that it features pandas and the food comes fast. Immediately, I am in Ironic Town, USA. Population: 1 because I have personal issues with this chain. You see, Gavin loves the food this place dishes out- greasy, hang-over food dripping in faux-Asian sauce. I hate it, because it's gross, and refer to the place as "The Dirty Panda". But since it doesn't exist on the East Coast, Gavin has rekindled his love affair with it's oily charms since we moved back by going at least once a week and dragging my reluctant ass with him. So pretty stinking funny/horrible that I should get a chance to hock this crapola. My life in art.
So I head down to the place and sign in, and on the sign in table is a cup of chopsticks w/ a note that says we should practice using them but not to put them in our mouths because many people would use them all day. I decline chopstick practice, as I have travelled to Asia and would have starved or at least created an international faux pas by using my hands to eat had I not learned to use chopsticks. Also, who does not know how to use chopsticks at this point? I will tell you who- the other girls in the room. They are pinching cheap splinter-laden chopsticks with varying degrees of skill and looking worried. I do not feel bad for them, however, as they are by and large Dutch super-models, and do not need my pity.
We go into the room in pairs. I am paired with a girl named Boblinka. I shit you not. We are to sit in front of the cameras and pick hard candies out of a chinese food carton, pretending that they are pieces of delicious orange chicken. The illusion stops short of our mouths, however, as we are told not to actually place the candies in our mouths. Awesome.
But here's where it really takes off. We are supposed to eat and chat and WATCH THE PANDA BEARS CAVORTING IN THE DISTANCE. These creatures are represented by the casting directors hand, held just behind the camera. We are told to react "just as we normally would to panda bears" and improvise a short scene. We do so. It involves us talking about the cuteness of the hand-pandas. Then we are told to be "really interested" in what the pandas are doing, and then to break out in a "slow smile". Fuck me.
Boblinka was super nice and we commiserated on the bizareness of our lives in the elevator ride down. Then I had to write a check for 3 dollars to the parking attendant because I never have cash. I felt a little like the Dude in the supermarket scene in The Big Lebowski.
I will not get this commercial. But if I do, then I hearbye renounce my ability to understand anything about anything. Because the world is a land of hand-pandas and fake chinese chicken, and there is nothing to do but laugh or kill yourself in such a world.
1.21.2008
Chunks Of Life, To You, From Me
a. I am feeling much better- for those of you not friended by me and therefore unable to read the health issue blog, it is all good and I am all good. And my raging hatred for hospitals has been fanned into full flame, once again.
b. It is cloudy here, and the weather people are acting like the second coming is nigh, and the Four Horsemen of the Appocalypse will be galloping down Sunset Boulevard at any moment, and all those weird 3 headed unicorns and shit from the book of Revelations will move to NoHo. Because it may rain. California, I mean this in the best way possible, but you really need to grow a pair.
c. I am already burnt out on the presidential race. This is the true test of all politicians- who can annoy me the least before my vote gets cast. "Mwah, he said this and he's a big poop!" , "Well she's a biggoted smelly face!". "I'm telling!". And these people want to run the country? It's enough to make me move to a kibbutz Except I'd have to leave the dogs, and that won't do. Otherwise, the kibbutz. All day.
d. I have gotten belatedly into The Office (American Version)- a co-worker leant me three seasons and I lerv it. I feel like a girl who finally got the New Kids on the Block lunchbox just as it became all about Guns N Roses. Like, 2 minutes past the coolness window. Fuck it, I have season three cooling it's heals in my desk drawer and I can't wait to get home and fill my heart with second hand embarassment at the antics of Dwight and Michael and draw connections to my co-workers.
e. I'd like some Chinese food for dinner, but not the shit you get here. the NY kind that's all cheap and delicious and delivered to your door.
f. You can tell yourself that baby carrotts are as good a snack as chocolate, but you will be lying. They don't even come close. They don't even get to go to the same college as chocolate, because their grades are too shitty and their parents are poor.
That's it for now.
b. It is cloudy here, and the weather people are acting like the second coming is nigh, and the Four Horsemen of the Appocalypse will be galloping down Sunset Boulevard at any moment, and all those weird 3 headed unicorns and shit from the book of Revelations will move to NoHo. Because it may rain. California, I mean this in the best way possible, but you really need to grow a pair.
c. I am already burnt out on the presidential race. This is the true test of all politicians- who can annoy me the least before my vote gets cast. "Mwah, he said this and he's a big poop!" , "Well she's a biggoted smelly face!". "I'm telling!". And these people want to run the country? It's enough to make me move to a kibbutz Except I'd have to leave the dogs, and that won't do. Otherwise, the kibbutz. All day.
d. I have gotten belatedly into The Office (American Version)- a co-worker leant me three seasons and I lerv it. I feel like a girl who finally got the New Kids on the Block lunchbox just as it became all about Guns N Roses. Like, 2 minutes past the coolness window. Fuck it, I have season three cooling it's heals in my desk drawer and I can't wait to get home and fill my heart with second hand embarassment at the antics of Dwight and Michael and draw connections to my co-workers.
e. I'd like some Chinese food for dinner, but not the shit you get here. the NY kind that's all cheap and delicious and delivered to your door.
f. You can tell yourself that baby carrotts are as good a snack as chocolate, but you will be lying. They don't even come close. They don't even get to go to the same college as chocolate, because their grades are too shitty and their parents are poor.
That's it for now.
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