This Side of Lost

In the next entry in True Internet Weirdness™, click here to assist a man attempting to log 1 billion unique page views on his website. Like you have anything better to do.

In other news:

• Samantha's first weekend away was complete. Her epee team did about as well as can be expected. She was not pleased with her individual performance, but she has a tendency to be overcompetitive and too hard on herself, so I believe she did fine as well.
• While she was gone, I bought some dice, some comics, and some crappy Chinese buffet before joining Davin, Jon and Phil for Strat-O-Matic, drinks and Headbanger's Ball. The Twins lost again, this time to the Red Sox (managed by Jon). It was a heartbreaker -- Santana pitched a shutout into the 9th inning -- the 9th inning! -- before Damon and Ramirez got on base and Ortiz hit it out of the park in the bottom of the ninth, thus winning the game 3-2. I'm now 0-2 in my managerial duties for the 2004 Twins.
• Samantha's second weekend away is coming up -- she leaves on Thursday to catch the Friday matinee of her brother's show in Statesboro. No doubt she's going to enjoy not driving for a while after she returns.
• We saw She Stoops to Conquer Monday night. It was most excellent. The acting was good, if not overwhelming. The actress playing Kate was very good, but I could see a truly talented actress doing wonders with the role. I enjoyed the play a lot and am always fascinated by how excellent literature stands the test of time. The play was written over 200 years ago and can say things about human nature that are still very applicable today.

'Tis all for now. Off to the Ash Wednesday service. I think I'm going to give up cookies for Lent. I also think I'm crazy.

Do not adjust your set -- you may be reading this entry twice. I'm going to start posting my entries here on LiveJournal as well, because it seems like something fun to do and may some of my peeps keep track of me easier. Plus I get to include my mood and music with my posts there. Even though the music will probably just be whatever's stuck in my head.

Which, today, is Great Big Sea. Yes, they were not on a list of any form, but instead jumped straight to the top of the queue thanks to a very strong first four tracks on their 2004 effort Something Beautiful, which I listened to on those nifty little headphone machines at Barnes and Noble. I don't know, something about them spoke to me, plus I figured Samantha would like them. The rest of the album isn't as good as the first four songs, but I've been pretty pleased nonetheless. Track 2 is the best and probably my new favorite song (as well as inspiration for the new name of my LJ page).

In other news:

• Apparently there's a 3-hour long Daily Show special on movies this Sunday night. Anyone interested in watching?
• The Twins won their first spring training game with Boston 6-3. Spring Training is a poor indicator of future performance, but I was excited anyway.
• Congratulations and props to my friend Becky, who is enrolling in a library science program this fall! Librarians unite! Here's some questionable advice for you, Becks. Remember, in every joke, there's 10% truth.
• And another dispatch from the same fellow. Inspired by that Chuck Norris site that's been making the rounds? Possibly.

Okay, I should probably revise my resume for the round robin resume review (RRRR) that's going on here today. Peace!

Samantha came home yesterday afternoon and told me that she heard some sad news on the radio: Kirby Puckett had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital. I took some time this morning to check out the news. Actually, it was unavoidable, since it was all over the half-dozen or so baseball news and blogs I generally check. You can think what you will about the things that Kirby was accused of in the past few years, but he was all that was good about Twins baseball for me at a very impressionable age. I'll be praying for him.

I'm home today after waking up feeling pretty terrible this morning. Thankfully my internship is flexible enough that I can make the time up sometime later (probably next week, since it'll be spring break and I'll have some free time). It's been fairly productive, as I've gotten some miscellaneous things done for my internship that I never have time for when I'm actually doing said internship. That and I'm enjoying sitting at home in pajama pants and hanging out with my kitties on a weekday -- something I'm sure I will seldom have opportunity to do once I get a real job.

Unfortunately, my productivity has been hampered slightly. I clicked on this link to a puppy curling game having been warned by the linker that I would not be able to play it only once. This has proven accurate. You, likewise, have been warned.

Speaking of curling, I'm somewhat sorry to say that I didn't catch any of the Olympic curling... or any of the Olympics, really. Not surprising, considering that we don't have cable or any TV reception to speak of, but I feel that I have betrayed my roots somewhat by missing the international coverage of a sporting team that, in the men's case, hails entirely from Northern Minnesota. Sigh.

In other news:

• Samantha's second weekend away was successful, if somewhat exhausting. She reports that Statesboro's first attempt at community theater was not bad, considering. She did really enjoy seeing her "non-artistic" brother Tim singing and acting.
• Meanwhile, I was not successful at much other than eating out too much (again) and watching movies: The Wedding Crashers with Jon on Friday night (hilarious!) and Match Point on Saturday by my lonesome (mostly unimpressive for the first half, and redeemed itself plot-wise in the second half, although acting throughout was lackluster).
• We watched the Oscars last night and were generally entertained. Jon Stewart was lots of fun and we were pleasantly surprised by Crash winning Best Picture. Best line of the evening: "Martin Scorcese, zero. Three 6 Mafia: one."
• Does anyone have any experience with organic peanut butter? I bought some two weeks ago and it has so far proven to be extraordinarily runny. I have scoured the packaging for a "Refrigerate After Opening" label, to no avail. I think I'm gonna put it in there anyway.

Off to pick up Samantha and meet with a possible caterer as the party planning putters along...

EDIT: Kirby Puckett is dead, at 45. I'm going to cry again if I think about this too long. So long, Puck.

Lots of baseball people have been trashing the World Baseball Classic, but it's hard to not enjoy this stuff. I mean, if you're on the Dominican Republic team and Santana's leaving after his requisite 65 pitches, who do you have to look forward to? Carlos Zambrano, firing 97 mph at you. Man. But Big Z has got Tejada, Pujols and Ortiz to deal with once he gets there.

This week's been a little weird so far. My schedule has been all wacky, for one. I didn't go to Greencastle because I was ill on Monday and Caroline's son was ill on Tuesday. So I am instead here today, but Caroline is home sick. And my baseball world is turned upside down with the untimely death of my childhood baseball hero, the breaking Barry Bonds stuff (no link -- go find it if you care, I really don't) and most interestingly, the WBC upset of Canada over the USA 8-6. Which was awesome, don't get me wrong -- I always root for the underdog, so seeing the US superstars get shut down by no-name Canadians (Adam Loewen? Eric Cyr? Stubby Clapp??) was pretty wild -- but still a little odd.

So I'm feeling kinda surreal. And then I go on Spring Break. Great, that'll help. Plans for Spring Break:

• Catch up on my work for my internship (journals, readings)
• Apply for jobs
• Do my project for Nisonger's class
• Finalize plans for the "wedding"
• Do our taxes
• Help Mari clean her apartment
• Go bowling
• Get my car fixed
• Watch WBC games with Jon and others
• Not travel. :( Except maybe to Indy.

In other news:

• Here's the preliminary news brief about my choir concert: it's Saturday the 25th, at 8 pm. Program is Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky and Barber. $12 advance tickets, plus free admission to the after-concert gathering that Samantha and I are probably hosting. Let us know if you want to come -- we have tickets we need to sell.
• Oh, regarding the WBC, if you've got some money to blow, check out this item on my wishlist. Soooo awesome. Wedding present, anyone?
• Umm... that's it.

For further proof that baseball is the best sport ever, witness the brilliant creation of the marketing people for a minor-league team.

We're back with more reviews of the AFI Top 100 after a three month hiatus. Next up is this 1935 naval adventure, starring Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone, directed by Frank Lloyd. It is "based on real events" of the fateful later 1780s voyage of the British ship Bounty to Tahiti, in which the ship's first mate Fletcher Christian (Gable) leads a revolt against the sadistic, tyrannical Captain Bligh (Laughton).

History has some very different things to say about this mutiny than the film does. Bligh and Christian were not nearly as cut-and-dried characters as the movie portrays (Bligh supposedly was far more lenient than many naval officers of the time, and Christian was supposedly very moody and egocentric), and the reasons for the mutiny itself are also debated.

Despite this, the film is pretty effective at being morally ambiguous. (Indeed, I think "morally ambiguous" is a hallmark of many of the films on this list.) For the first half of the film, you are aghast at Bligh's cruelty along with Christian and the ship's crew, especially when compared against the idyllic life they enjoy for months upon reaching Tahiti. So we sympathize when the revolt finally happens.

But the scenes of Bligh and his loyal crew's 45 day, 3000 mile voyage in a lifeboat without adequate supplies starts to turn our hearts, as does the unenviable position that the mutineers are placed in, as they are eventually tracked down by the British navy and chased to remote Pitcairn Island, doomed to exile. And we start to consider that life on Tahiti would be awfully nice, but it is an indolent existence, gained at what cost?

Nobody really wins in this story, not even the men who pledge loyal to Bligh but are forced to remain with the mutineers, only to be put on trail anyway upon their "rescue." I guess the 1935 moviegoers win, as they were treated to a grand epic not often seen in that time period -- it was filmed on location at Tahiti and upon a life-size replica of the Bounty, over-budget at $2 million, and grand in length at just over two hours. The acting is fine, if pretty standard for the 1930s classic films we've seen.

The last point worth mentioning was the "bonus feature" on the DVD -- a period news reel about "modern day" Pitcairn Island, populated by the inbred descendants of the mutineers. We couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of this due to the extremely creepy Twilight-Zone feeling of it, and it just further cemented the overall "ick" feeling the movie provided.

Good flick, not really recommended, unless you're in to this kind of thing, I guess.

(See this post if you're confused why I'm reviewing movies.)

Okay, I've been away for a little while, sorry. I was on Spring Break, so give me a, well, you know. I don't even have a weird link for you today! Man. I guess I'll just have to go with an oldie-but-goodie, the classic Insanity Test.

I have done very little of what I planned to do over the break, but I was very successful at one thing -- taking a break. Ah well. I guess I'll just have a good reason to work even harder next week.

In other news:

• I worked for Gary for 8 hours on Tuesday, helping him put together a grant application. I can see now why people agonize over this process.
• Samantha and I ventured into Indy on Thursday to see this Broad Ripple place we hear so much about on WTTS. It was pleasant, if underwhelming. We didn't purchase anything, though.
• St. Urho's Day was on Thursday as well. If you know what this is, that should be all the information you need to grasp its importance. If you don't know what this is, I'm not going to tell you. So there.
• We watched Mari and her amazing fiddling talents on St. Paddy's Day, and then stuck around for a poetry slam. Yikes. Now I can say that I've been to a poetry slam. Whee!
• We witnessed the end of the Indiana basketball season last night, at Yogi's. I feel somewhat ashamed that I even am aware of this, but there it is. Chalk it up to the atmosphere of hoops that seems to permeate the very air around me in this state. I can't escape.
• I have now finished the ninth book of the Wheel of Time series. Victory is within my grasp. An acquaintance asked me how long I've been reading this series, and I had to go into the Archives to figure it out... I think it was October. Yikes again.
• I have signed on with another choir for a temporary period. Yes, I am a singing fool. More news about this soon.

And I'd better finish off my Spring Break right... with greasy Chinese. Probably.

Recently I was made aware of the assertion that Transformers: The Movie and Daft Punk's album Homework sync up a la Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any corroboration of this statement anywhere else. But if you know me at all, it should not be surprising that regardless this has made me extremely curious, to the point that I have had to restrain myself from running out and buying the CD. Mostly I just haven't had time to do so, nor will I really have time to attempt said sync up even if I did. But should any of my readers have the urge to burn a copy of Homework and send it along, I certainly wouldn't mind...

The first day of spring was greeted by 3 inches of snow here in Bloomington. Awesome. Feels like home.

Back to work... 8-10 page paper due on Friday...

The four Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo) along with Margaret Dumont and Louis Calhern star in this 1933 screwball, satirical comedy. Groucho is Rufus T. Firefly, the new president of Freedonia who is being spied on (Chico, Harpo) by the neighboring Sylvania, with the two countries eventually going to war.

I am beginning to realize that I am perhaps not enough of a movie snob for this list. The things I read to write today's review all pick either this movie or A Night at the Opera as the Marx brother's best film, depending on your sympathies. This was the Marx brother's last Paramount picture before moving to MGM and toning the satire and anarchy down a little in favor of more coherent plotlines and more sympathetic characters.

Satire and anarchy pretty much describe Duck Soup to a T. The "plot" is not so much a plot as a vehicle for Groucho's one-liners and the crazy physical comedy routines. But you have to have an appreciation of the dry, dry wit and the somewhat sadistic slapstick to enjoy this. I was chuckling pretty much throughout, especially at the more bizarre, non-sequitur stuff and the punnier of Groucho's lines. But Samantha barely cracked a smile, and there were several times when, at the end of a routine, we just kind of looked at each other like, 'Well, that was something, wasn't it?"

The jokes and humor are lightning fast and never stop, so if you miss something there's no time to turn to your viewing partner and ask, "Did you catch that?" without risking missing the next three jokes. Mix in the somewhat difficult to understand accents of Groucho and Chico and you have a recipe for disaster if you're not already on board.

I enjoyed the movie overall and there were several parts that were really, really funny, but I was taken aback by the lack of structure, breakneck pacing and the no-holds-barred satirical viewpoint. All of which leads me to believe that I would enjoy A Night at the Opera more. Which probably means I'm not enough of a movie snob.

(See this post if you're confused why I'm reviewing movies.)

You may have seen this already, but I would be remiss in warning you that not shooting puppies was never so difficult.

You'll have to excuse my absence from the blogospherez0rz again. We had a pretty busy week and weekend, mostly due to the choir concert on Saturday. Rehearsals on four weeknights will do that. But it went off very well. The audience was large and appreciative, and even contained a number of people who we knew! Thanks for coming out, friends. It really does mean a lot to us.

And now, for my next trick, I am singing two concerts this week with a group called the Meridian Vocal Consort. They are a 16 voice group lead by Michael Messina, the director at Trinity Episcopal in Indianapolis. They are out of town unfortunately -- Thursday night in Louisville and Sunday night in Indianapolis. But if you are willing to travel, I think they're free, and the group is very good -- and if you know me, you know I don't give compliments to choral groups lightly. More details soon (I forgot my schedule at home).

Woot, choir. I love choir. If I could make a living singing in choirs, I would.

In other news:

• My paper for Nisonger's class turned out pretty well. I discovered that ye olde St. Olaf science library has about half the items recommended by some know-it-all chemistry librarian. Not bad for a dinky little liberal arts college in Minnesota. And I got to use my Access skillz. Yeeuh.
• Samantha's fencing kids came over after the concert and played a couple awesome games of Apples to Apples. Fun game, thanks Mom!
• We made risotto on Sunday night. Let me tell you, that's a lot of stirring. It turned out pretty good, if extremely sticky. Maybe I should have kept adding broth? Anyone have any risotto experience?
• My internship supervisor Caroline brought her 8 month old son Broz over to the library for lunch yesterday. He was very cute, and very distracting.
• I ate waaay too much beef yesterday: another GCB from Marvin's and a reuben at Shapiro's Deli. Yes, the sandwich did really look like that. I counted 26 slices of corned beef, not to mention the sauerkraut. Very tasty, but that's just too much meat. My stomach was not happy. Remind me not to have two beef-centric meals in one day.
• Baseball starts this Sunday! Imagine the use of excessive exclamation points (and perhaps a trailing one) to emphasize this fact... I won't actually subject you to such crudeness.

I suppose I should do some work while I'm at work. Just as soon as I get back from lunch. Hee.

Here's some pics and a movie of some dude's Optimus Prime CGI models. Ohh yeah. If amateurs can look this good, hopefully it bodes well for the real thing.

Our concert in Louisville went pretty well. One more in Indy this weekend. It's at Trinity Episcopal (3243 N. Meridian) on Sunday at 7 pm. It's free and the musicianship is really top-notch.

Samantha is on her way to Clemson, SC, right now for her last fencing team tournament of the season. And I will get some work done this weekend. Really I will.

In other news:

• I rode back from Louisville with one Patricia Thompson, who is an Ole grad! We had fun talking about differences in the St. Olaf Choir between when she was there (for KJ's last two years and Dr. A's first) and when I was, as well as general Ole stuff. Hooray for new friends!
• Making global changes to websites is kinda hard. I know how to use sed well enough to get by, but it's still rather difficult. Like, how do I insert new lines of code 5 lines from the end of 16 different .html files?
• Ummm... apparently librarian jobs aren't gonna fall in my lap by themselves. I should get to work on this too.

So much to do, and I have so little motivation to do it all... sigh. Story of my life, I guess.