This is courtesy of my very good friend M. in England. Bless you m'dear. I needed that laugh this morning.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Woooohooo! New episodes of Wire in the Blood start airing on Monday, April 11th.

If you have BBC America on your cable/satellite system (DirecTV Channel 264!) and are a fan of crime drama, I would highly recommend watching this series. Robson Green plays Dr. Tony Hill, who according to the website is:

{...} a clinical psychologist who works with convicted killers in secure units. Intelligent and endearing, he is driven by a tangible sense of right and wrong, working to glean information from his patients about their crimes to help them and the victims' relatives. Tony's understanding of human behavior enables him to empathize with both victim and killer - even to the point of almost sensing the killings themselves. His expertise could be valuable to the police, but some consider him too eccentric.

By eccentric they mean a. he's not overly postmodern and b. he talks to himself. A lot. Robson Green's performance is, quite honestly, one of the best and most interesting performances on I've seen on tee vee in recent years. This character is someone who if you ran into them in real life, you'd think was a complete nutjob. But Green makes him extraordinarily fascinating and lets you into Tony's head, and not in a hokey, Tom Cruise-ish sort of way.

BBCAmerica is running older episodes starting this evening, with the new series starting on the 11th. Check it out if you get the chance and have two hours at a shot to blow. It's well worth your time.

I suppose I should also note that the Brits have different broadcast standards than we do. These, on occasion, can be fairly gory. Beware.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:10 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I've been wondering what that series is like. I haven't caught it this year, but I also really like McCallum on BBCA.

Posted by: Ith at March 28, 2005 01:01 PM (YS7HR)

2 *sobs* I miss my BBCA. *wail*

Posted by: Margi at March 28, 2005 03:57 PM (lWAiX)

3 Poor, poor Margi.

Posted by: Kathy at March 28, 2005 05:12 PM (Tosbv)

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(Click for larger)

While I agree with Jade about the hideous habit that is scrapbooking (Right on, Sistah!), I think she can still find a better way to spend her time than playing World of Warcraft.

If you're unfamiliar with this cartoon, this is PVP-Online, which is written by the very clever and very funny Scott Kurtz.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:17 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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To the east side...to a deluxe apartment in the sky-iiiii

Ok, now that you've got that stuck in your heads, join me in congratulating Doug of Bogus Gold for getting the hell off bugsplat Blogspot.

I hope you're happy in your new home, Doug. You will adore not being held hostage by Blogger's burps, belches and farts.

But you still owe me an essay, dude. {taps fingers impatiently on laptop} Don't think I've forgotten.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So, was that an awesome last four minutes in regular play, or what?

And thank God for it, otherwise my brackets would have been a complete and utter failure had Illinois not pulled it together.

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The Microsquash Pineapple has undergone a modification. What can we say? We hacked it. (Hahaha. Get it?) Er, anyway, I present to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers---ahem---The Microsquash Pineapple: The Cake Eater Mod.

Gawd. I crack myself up sometimes.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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My beer is getting around.

According to Russ: "I let your beer outside to play with the neighbor's beer, and when I came back outside, this is what I found. ISSUES! Your beer has issues."

Never mind the fireworks. My beer is fraternizing with---dare I say it?---Hawkeyes!

I feel a case of the vapors coming on.

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Robbo's second entry into his Fear and Loathing in Disney World is up.

It's titled The Mouse's Lair.

A small sampling to whet your appetite:

{...}Speaking of feeding, we got to the Lodge around lunchtime. It boasts two restaurants and a bar, none of which was open. “Oh,” it was explained with false chirpiness, “everyone is either out in the park or asleep at this time of day. But the snack bar is open!” (This was the first direct example I came across of Disney’s ruling philosophy regarding the accomodation of its guests: “Do It Our Way Or Screw You.” That example was to be repeated many times over the course of our visit. The concept of “Customer Satisfaction” at the House of Mouse is a mile wide and an inch deep.) Anyhoo, the snack bar proved to be a nasty cafeteria-style enclave down in the basement that wouldn’t have passed muster in the average Student Union. Not that the average student could have afforded it, however. When you get to Disney, it’s frightening how fast you start automatically thinking of prices in $50 increments.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

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Last week when I was guesting over at the Butchers Shop, I made a new friend with these posts. When I told Russ to have a beer for me at Kelly's, being the good guy he is, he obliged.

I didn't expect the beer to actually, you know, make the rounds of the greater Kansas City and Winterset, Iowa metropolitan areas. But it did. My beer, apparently, was a bit of a floozy, and an underage floozy at that, being no older than three months! Getting into cars with men it didn't know, going back to hotel rooms, taunting Oklahoma spirit displays at the Embassy Suites, crossing state lines, making friends with snacks that are bad for you, etc.

Bad, bad beer. You're going to get a reputation!

Generally, when a beer's reputation is on the line, it's because of rumors. Unfortunately, there are no rumors this time around. There's proof. I present to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, The Flooziness of the Beer.

Can you say "jailbait?"

BOOMER SOONER, BOOMER SOONER, BOOMER SOONER! If there are any other words in the Oklahoma fight song than "Boomer Sooner" my beer doesn't know them. Plus, my beer was drunk at the time, so she really can't be expected to know it anyway.

My beer crosses state lines with snacks in tow. My beer apparently did her best to look over eighteen. Russ isn't in jail right now, so she must have done a bang up job.

This is where my beer apparently told Russ to stop the car. She got out and did her best impersonation-of Meryl Streep-impersonating-an-Italian-woman in front of the bridge, while saying, And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before. Or some such bullshit. It could have been, Clint, you're a bastard for foisting a movie made from that piece-of-excrement-masquerading-as-a-novel on all of us..

Of course, she would have dropped the Meryl Streep impersonation if she had said that. Because she's my beer, and she knows I have certain expectations for behavior.

Of course a trip to Winterset wouldn't be complete without going to see The Duke's birthplace. I can only imagine what my beer, being the floozy that she is, did here. Really, I don't want to know.

According to Russ, my beer really is a nice beer, with lots of hops flavor, and she "does NOT have an annoying fake British accent like that damn Travelocity gnome." Which is good to know, because I have no idea why my beer would have an English accent, being a flower of the midwest. My beer, reportedly, is heading to the Spring Game in Ames next month and might make her floozy-ish way elsewhere in the meantime.

We shall see what we shall see.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:44 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm pretty sure Robbo has one of these. Somewhere.

After this post, he needs to pull it out, polish it up and wear it with pride!

Posted by: Kathy at 10:35 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Title shamelessly pilfered from this post by Michele, which is the funniest thing you will read all day, hands down.

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Robbo has started to detail his adventures from last week. The first installment is titled: Slouching Toward Kissimmee.

Go and read. He's getting warmed up.

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Since it's snowing here and the Clones just got thrown out of the Big XII tournament by that beeee-yotch Bobby Knight, I thought I could use a little pick me up.

Yesterday, Michele posted a link to this film. (Which is NOT safe for anyone, really). The daisy chain of what is to follow goes something like this...

I watched the film. The husband caught me giggling at it. He laughed, too and then posted the link to the film on his nerd gamer boards. This film inspired one of his buddies, Doc, to write the following little screenplay and post it to said boards. Unfortunately, the boards are password protected, so I can't link directly to it. I got Doc's permission to republish what he wrote here and edited for clarity.

I'm told that Pelleon and Thrawn are Imperial Admirals from the expanded Star Wars Universe. Like it matters.

Anyway, enjoy. I know I did.

A time not long, long, ago, in a galaxy not very far, far away

{A lone star destroyer blinks out of hyperspace}

Zugs: "Target galaxy has been reached. We've confirmed the location of their hideout, Sir. I cant believe what they did to poor Bugs Bunny...."

Neeva: "Very well, deploy the nav buoy and order the fleet to our location"

Zugs: "Yes, sir"

{Several dozen star destroyers parade into the zone, followed by the super star destroyer, and about a hundered or so corvettes, transports, and support vessels}

Pelleon: "Lord Vader, we've arrived. Those vile trators will pay"

Vader: "Excellent. Notify Admiral Thrawn to ready his defense wings should they raise any sign of a defense."

Pelleon: "Yes, lord Vader. It's sure is a shame what they did to
Bugs..."

{The fleet makes its way past a region of frozen debris, several gas giants, a mid-system asteroid belt, and a small red dustworld. Finally the destination is reached}

{Switch to a scene, somewhere in a bunker, built a mile into a mountain}

Lieutenant: "Sir, this is unbelievable, we're picking up contacts from... space?"

General: {passes the butterbar a memo} Read this, son"

{Switch to a shot of Presidential Directive}

"Presidential Directive x3458:
Gentlemen:

A large fleet of spacecraft may materialize in earth's orbit sometime this afternoon. Do not be alarmed. Pop some popcorn, sit back, and enjoy the show!

-W"

Lieutenant: "Sir, does this mean what I think it means?"

General: "He he heh. That's right, boy, Hollywood's day of reckoning has come!"

Lieutenant: "Hot Damn! They'll pay for raping my happy childhood now! {grabs his M-9}

General: "Settle down son, put down your piece and watch the experts handle this. Sure is a shame what they did to Bugs though."

{Meanwhile, deep inside Hollywood}

random executive #1: "That's strange, why were the Emmy's, Oscars, Viewers Choice awards, and about 20-odd other meaningless award ceremonies all moved to tonight?"

random executive #2: "I know, cool idea huh? We get to pat ourselves on the back earlier this year! And wasn't it GREAT how we modernized Bugs Bunny! I'm a genius!"

random executive #1: "Hey, what the hell was that noise?"

random intern: "Sir! Stormtroopers!"

{lots of carnage follows}

random executive #1: "Call the Governator!"

Arnold: "This es vhat you get, you fvhools... this es vor years auf portrayink me like Hans und Frans! Listen to me now ant hear me later, they're comming to fuck *clap* you up! Ant I von't stop them, you bunny fucker!"

{Pan to outside studio. Lots more carnage, as stormtroopers act as entertainment industry karma chinese food delivery boys}

{Switch to scene aboard Vader's ship}

Cyborg Reagan: "That's a beautiful sight, boys. Too bad about Bugs, though."

Cyborg Wayne: "Hot damn, it's about time! By the way, how exactly did they bring us back from the dead to be the next occupiers of Hollywood?"

Cyborg Patton: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, son"

Cyborg Wayne: "Who are you calling son, pilgrim? {reaches for a revolver}"

Cyborg Reagan: "Easy there, Duke, Ted Kennedy's car has killed more folks then your gun, General Patton's for real. I'd leave him alone if I were you"

Vader: "Stop this bickering at once, or I"ll transport you all down there now, insted of after the area has been 'secured.'"

{Switch back to deep in a Hollywood executive's office}

random executive #1: "There has to be SOMEONE who will save us!"

random executive #2: "Not likely, Jim, we've pissed off most of the old heores with your 'modernized' revisions of them:

random executive #1: "That's nonsense! Get me Batman on the line!"

random intern: "Sir, Batman told us to go fuck off"

random executive#1: "Ok. Get me Spiderman on the line then!"

random intern: "Sir, we killed him off, remember?"

random executive #1: "Fuck! thats right! How about Superman?"

random intern: "Sir, he's dead too, but his last words to us were: 'Go fuck yourselves for ruining the Loony Tunes.' "

random executive #1: How about the army?"

random intern: "Sir, weve painted them in a bad light too!"

random executive#2: "The rebels?"

random intern: "Mon Mothma said, and I quote, "Get bent" (she always was so polite)"

random executive #1: "Sir Sean Connery! Surely he'll help us!"

random intern: "Sir, even that senile old goat is cheering the Empire on."

random executive #2: "What about Sir Elton John?"

random intern: "Forgive me for sounding glib, sir, but he took the pipe crying like a Sally in the first strike."

C3P0: " {wanders in} Oh, my. That's it. You're doomed!"

Marvin:" {sighs} I wish It was me"

R2D2: {lots of beeps} (translation: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!)"

{Switch to Aboard Vader's ship}

Everyone: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"

{Switch to in a US command bunker in a mountain}

Everyone: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"

{Everwhere, as people finally get revenge for decades of shitty Hollywood ideas}

Everyone: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!"

{Switch back to Hollywood executive's office}

Random executive: "Damn, I wish that line was our idea"

Stormtrooper: "Shut the fuck up and kneel! Bugs says 'hi.'"

{stormtrooper blows random executive's brains out}

Stoomtrooper: "Now, find where that fat fuck Michael Moore is, before he portrays this as some kind of tragedy instead of the healing cartharsis it is!"

W: "Hehe, settle down, cloneboy, leave him to me"

Arnold: "I'll ahrm vrestle you vor his head!!"

UPDATE: Related. {Ahem. Clears Throat} RIGHT ON!

Posted by: Kathy at 05:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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With DirecTV I am not able to get a local forecast on the Weather Channel, because on this satellite service, the Weather Channel is a nationwide service and isn't "equipped" to handle specific regions.

Yet, when I want to watch a freakin' Big XII basketball game, I cannot---without paying extra for the privilege---because it's an out of region game.

Is it just me, or does this make absolutely NO sense whatsoever?

Make up your freakin' minds, DirecTV

And one other thing: NBA League Pass is not heaven. If I see one more eedjit reincarnated right back to the scene of their death to continue watching their stupid pro basketball games, I will beat someone with a stick.

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1 Is it tragic that I remember all the words to that song? I always wanted a log

Posted by: silk at March 10, 2005 03:09 AM (uSiRG)

2 R&S flashbacks! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! :-D

Posted by: zonker at March 10, 2005 07:47 AM (/y7q3)

3 Great now I will have that stuck in my head all day! LOL

Posted by: jules at March 10, 2005 11:07 AM (kUgaP)

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I think Sadie is receiving the brunt of the payback for our Divas posts of recent weeks given the nature of her various all-male, all the time guest bloggers' subject matter.

In fact, one gentleman wrote, "Verily, I considered myself the Sir Isaac Newton of poontang."

I would highly recommend going over and, if the smell of locker room doesn't turn you off too much, to just keep scrolling.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:08 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Jonathan's got a question regarding Sin City:

{...}What I want to know is, has anyone else out there actually read the comic books?

Whatever else the Sin City comics may be, they are utterly unfilmable. They are page after page of murder, mutilation, torture, rape, beheading, cannibalism, and worse. L.A. Confidential is noir. Touch of Evil is noir. Sin City is Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho without the daintiness and restraint. Think Hannibal meets Faces of Death.{...}

Well, I've never read them. Nor had I ever heard of them. When I commented on the movie earlier, I was working strictly off seeing the trailer during one of my trips to Apple.com.

The thing that struck me was that it looks like an actual comic book. And for a movie in this day and age, well, that's impressive. While Ang Lee adapted the typical comic book layout for his own purposes in The Hulk (which, honestly, really isn't that bad of a movie) and M. Night Shymalan did the same with Unbreakable, neither really made you the feel as if the glossy, chiaroscuro-ed, cross-hatched pages were right beneath your fingers. This movie looks like it could do it.

Provided the plot doesn't suck. If the plot strays too far from the original source material, well, it's done for. The subject matter must match the visual style of the film. I'm certainly not expecting a film titled Sin City, and that looks as dark as it does, to be about Girl Scouts selling do-si-dos in the hood. In other words, what does the audience expect and what will Hollywood deliver---and shall the twain meet somewhere in the middle? I believe it can be done, but only if the people making the film have some faith in their audience.

It's funny that Jonathan should mention Hannibal because, ultimately, that's the best example to prove my point about not straying too far from the source material. When Hannibal---the book---was released, no one thought they could ever make it into a film. It was unfilmable, they said. It was too gory. Too sick. I didn't think Hollywood could manage it and stay true to the material. But Ridley Scott did---mostly. While Ridley did manage to tone down the gore a bit (well, we are talking about Ridley here) still, there was Ray Liotta, at the end of the movie, watching Hannibal cook his own brains. Doesn't get much ickier than that, does it? None of the problems people anticipated the production would have in adapting the book were apparent in the film. Ridley managed it.

The real problem resided with the ending.

It was completely different from the book, and it had been bastardized by Hollywood. And that pissed me off, not the gore. The gore I expected. The ending, however, was not what I wanted to see. I wanted to see the ending as Thomas Harris' had written it, and not the ending that we received which kept Clarice's morals intact. They apparently never thought it was an option to have Clarice go off the deep-end, because the "alternate endings" on the DVD revolved around whether Clarice and Hannibal locked lips---and nothing else. In the book, however, Hannibal does corrupt Clarice. But he doesn't play fair, either, because she's drugged when he corrupts her. That ending and subsequent beginning of the next Hannibal movie would have been much, much better, because it would have taken us someplace we haven't been before. As it stands now, any new Hannibal movie they come up with (which I've heard from the lips of Sir Anthony himself will happen), will be about trying to recapture him...again. Which shouldn't be too damn hard because he's missing a hand.

I'd gone to see Hannibal, mainly, because I wanted to see if they chickened out with the ending. And they did chicken out. No surprises there. Hollywood's need to drop everything to the lowest common denominator is what ruins films, not the depravity of the source material. If the source material was so unfilmable, why on earth did they bother buying Miller's options? What's the point? If you're going to go ga-ga over the original source material and then try to tame it, you're not going to have a satisfying end-product, are you? The problem should be solved by the studios and producers optioning material that works within their parameters, instead of trying to shoehorn a great book or graphic novel, as it were, into those parameters after the fact.

Ultimately, audiences can make the decision about whether they can handle the material. Why Hollywood has so little faith in their audiences still seems to elude me.

Perhaps Scooby Doo 2 has an answer somewhere in it.

UPDATE: Jonathan's sticking to his guns. Via email:

{...}I just picked them up a couple weeks ago and
made my way through them. You and I should be forgiven for this
oversight, but my point was that the higher beings at EW shouldn't.

Also, Sin City makes Hannibal look like Snow White. I'm telling you, as
written: Unfilmable. (Or rather, filmable, but unwatchable.)

I trust Jonathan about the Sin City books, but I'm going to stick to my guns and hope they made the appropriate compromises when converting the source material. I don't want to pay yet another eight dollars and fifty cents to see a movie that might turn out to be least common denominator garbage.

If Hollywood's going to treat me like a child, I should at least be able to get the child rate at the theater.

At any rate, I'll look forward to Jonathan's review when it comes out in The Weekly Standard.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oh, man.

Has J. Crew really sunk so low as to come out with wedding dresses?

My sister, Christi, is a bridal designer. She also does some Haute Couture work on the side, but bridal gowns are her bread and butter. While she's done some interesting work over the years (including one bridal gown trimmed in mink) she mostly knocks off famous designers. (She probably would call them "inspired by" just to be nice about it.)

I can't imagine, though, that she could---or even WOULD---knock off a J.Crew wedding dress. First, she charges more than they are priced at. Second, she would have a serious crisis of conscience about charging someone for making what looks like a slip or a nightgown! (and is probably constructed as well.)

Posted by: Kathy at 02:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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At the party last night, the hosts had carted in a photo booth for shits and giggles. Apparently you can rent these things. This particular booth, the guy who was running it said, was one of the State Fair booths. This is what picture booths do in the off-season.

This is one of our shots.

Nauseating, isn't it?

Go and run to the bathroom. I'll wait while you vomit.

Heheheh.

Anyway, the husband, as it turns out, was a photo booth virgin. There wasn't a booth in the small town in Iowa where he grew up, so he'd never had the experience before. When he told me this my jaw about dropped. I thought everyone had experienced this at one time or another.

This just goes to show how different city and country life are when it comes to the little things. I knew, as did all of my friends, where every booth was in every mall we frequented. A stop by a booth---and the subesequent cramming of five teenage girls into the thing---was a highlight of every solo shopping trip we managed to take. It was one of those silly, everyday sorts of things common to where you live, I guess. The husband didn't have that because his town was too small to rate a photo booth.

So, I suppose it's not really a surprise that he'd go for the make-out shot, is it? He completely caught me off-guard, too. But it was nice nonetheless.

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Woohoo!

That's just marvelous.

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1 Here, have some virtual champagne! [does a happy dance]

Posted by: Ith at March 04, 2005 11:32 AM (uIMFq)

2 {clinks champagne flute with Ith}

Posted by: Kathy at March 04, 2005 11:37 AM (Tosbv)

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