The Big Shots of Big Hollywood

Thursday, May 28, 2009

How come?

How come, when you see a link for a video that you'd like to see and they make you watch a commercial first, how come that commercial plays P E R F E C T L Y? No stutter, sound synched up P E R F E C T L Y too.

What is up with that?

And then when the video of what you really want to see comes on, it is just... crap.

Don't tell me we don't have the technology to get this done. I know we do.

THAT is what capitalism is all about, making sure the commercial works, and if we don't make money off of you, you can drop off the edge of the earth and die.

I want a little more socialism in my internet videos. "From each video according to it's viewer, to each viewer according to what they see."

Or something like that.

K U R T

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

An Open (Face)Book

I’m struggling with my desire to be open and honest on facebook and I keep running into a wall because I’m afraid I am going to offend someone. It’s embarrassing but true. I’ve seen what my more outspoken friends' status updates can do -- they can start fights among “friends.” It happens, people.

For instance…

I can’t express my abhorrence for the local professional basketball team and the hope that the underdog team from my hometown (which happens to be a mile-high) publicly embarrasses them, because I’m sure most of my LA based friends don’t feel the same way and will not hesitate to shiv me in the parking lot.

I can’t give my honest review of the much-anticipated sequel that may or may not take place in Rome and may or may not have starred one of the guys from Bosom Buddies because I have a friend who may or may not do marketing for the studio that released the hypothetical film (which was stinky poo-poo). And how bad does that transforming robot movie look? But can’t really throw that out there because who knows who may have worked on it.

And then there’s the whole having to be vague about when and where I was at some point in case I was somewhere when I shouldn’t be. (Microsoft Word didn’t autocorrect the previous sentence so I’m going to go with it, as is).

I’ll just have to repress all this stuff until it comes out in a tell-all autobiography that I will self-publish because who really gives a crap.

Am I a dick because I didn’t devote my status update to berating the California Supreme Court for shaming our state by upholding Proposition 8? Quoting the B52s’ “Bushfire” is pretty much the same thing, right?

Denver_Nuggets_Old_Logo

(shhhh) Go Nuggets!!
gretch

Getting a Charge Out of Something

I am getting ready to go on a trip. I'm reminded again of the days of yore, before cell phones and ipods, and digital cameras, GPS units, and laptop computers. I'm taking all of these with me. Indeed, I couldn't imagine NOT taking all of those with me.

Though I am wistful about Life As It Was Before, where I'd only need a book and maybe a crossword puzzle for a cross-country flight, I don't think I'd be comfortable now without all these doodads connecting me to other things. But there is something I could do without - the chargers. With the wall plugs and the USB ports, the car chargers, and the hands free devices...I don't think it's a coincidence that the airlines have started charging for checking a single bag, and that the weight restrictions are harder and harder to meet.

I guess I'm thinking now that all these gadgets, these things that are supposed to serve our more on-the-go lifestyle, are really weighing us down, and keeping us tethered, regardless of the hype. It's illusory. We know we can't go far, or long, without the appropriate connection. Which brings to mind connecting flights, and the sea of humanity coming and going from an airport on any given day. The word connection itself - I mean, we're all working so hard at it, to achieve it, and get so little in the end.

Maybe I'm in a Mood. I have to get on a plane tomorrow, and I think we all know that planes flying in the air is the biggest illusion of them all.

See you on the other side (of the country, that is)

Jenny

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Guns


I own a couple of guns. They're the guns my dad and uncle brought back from WWII, and they still work!

Anyway, here's my feeling on gun control...

If they take away my guns, then I won't have any guns.

Makes you think, dunnit?

Kurt

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The More You Know....the less you want to know....and the less you'll sleep




I don't really have anything to say to this. I just wanted to share.

Sorry about the nightmares,

Jenny

Friday, May 15, 2009

Work on your calves


Leaning against a brick wall watching men get out of their expensive cars and walking to the gym.

I can only see them from the waist up as a long hedge obscures my view of their bottom half. As I watch each guy get out of their car I see the same thing... perfect hair, tanned, muscle shirt, big chest, huge arms.

I start nodding my head. Each guy in turn clears the hedge. Yup, I knew it. Chicken legs. Stuck in the '80's where all you needed was a big chest and two tickets to the gun show. They don't work their legs, and I know this is going to sound a little gay, but they look stupid.

You know why they don't work their legs? Because it's hard. It's not easy doing squats to the point you think your spine is going to pop right out of your hips. It's not fun doing 15 sets of calf raises on a Saturday night when those other guys had knocked off a lot earlier and were now hitting the bars. When I belonged to a gym, I never had to wait to use the leg equipment.

These guys take a shortcut in the gym, and I'm sure they take a shortcut in other aspects of their lives. They're like the college recruit that comes from a house with a three or four car garage. No fire, nothing to overcome, all upper body, no lower body. The recruit you want is the guy with a one car garage, or better yet, no garage.

Sometimes in life you have to do the stuff that isn't fun, stuff that hurts. Not always, but sometimes.

Work your calves.

Kurt

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rebranded a Fool

Soooooo, it's come to my attention that the SciFi Channel is planning to rebrand as Syfy. They are exhorting me to Imagine Greater....They'd apparently like for me to imagine a world where no one is an expert on anything. Where everyone tries to be everything to everybody else, and there's no specialization, no pride of place.

Whose big idea was this? I mean, truly? Syfy? At first I thought it would be pronounced the same as the old way, but now I'm not sure if they don't mean to transition us to "seefee," hoping one day we'll forget there ever was Science Fiction at all. Because they are about to show us all about how broad "imagination-based entertainment" can be.

I can't imagine how much this is costing them in replacement letterhead alone. But changing the letterhead always seemed to me to be a good reason NOT TO MOVE. What happened to niche marketing? What happened to dancing with the one that brung you? Hmm?


Jenny




You Know What I Wonder About Triplets?

Is there one who is always left out? There has to be, right? How do they choose who’s going to ride together on Space Mountain? And kids are cruel, you can’t tell me that the two stronger ones don’t beat-up on and alienate the weaker one. I just can’t imagine it. Two’s company, three’s a crowd. Someone is going to be left out.

Then I think back to the Koyama triplets who were a year ahead of me at Cherry Creek High School. They were cute and smart and all were great dancers. They were nice and popular and heavily involved in extra curricular activities. But there was one who stood out, even if just a half a step, from her sisters. I can’t remember which one it was because, c’mon, they all looked alike. But whichever one it was, she was just a little brighter, a teensy bit shinier that the other two. At least the other two weren’t beating up on her - they were looking up to her, perhaps even vying for her affection. For some reason, that makes me feel better. Not that I’m constantly thinking about triplets, either, it’s not like I’ve been losing sleep over this. Was just wondering…

moins03_TripletsBelleville-

Seriously, I'm not obsessed with triplets.

gretch

Monday, May 11, 2009

It's all there. Everything. All the time.

I have a lot of thoughts. Ideas. All of us do. Not all or even most of them any good or interesting. But some. Some are very good. And as we become a more information-based society, the number of thoughts and ideas multiply. As we are faced each day by an ever-increasing number of pieces of data, we think more thoughts in response to them. Number gets higher and higher.

Sometimes when I think a thought, shortly after, I think, huh, when was the last time I thought that? Let me give you a fer instance. Someone within earshot mentions The South, and another person responds to that by mentioning Lynyrd Skynyrd, and then I think - to myself - "well won't you gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister, gimme three steps toward the door..." And THEN I think this: "I've known those lyrics for a long time." And then I think: "when was the last time I thought of those lyrics?" And then I think "it's weird that those lyrics don't cross my mind every day." And then, finally "I wonder how long it will be before the fact that I thought of those lyrics fades from my current thought pattern...and when will I next think of those lyrics?"

So imagine that, but with a person you knew. How is it possible that someone you knew - were close to, even - in high school, say, or in college - how can it be that you go a day without thinking of that person?

I think something like Facebook is our attempt to create a simulacrum of our brain that presents every memory and every piece of information simultaneously, contains all our knowledge, thinks constantly of every single person we ever knew, and every event we ever experienced, every song we ever liked.

Facebook is turning us all into the conspiracy theorist, serial killer, or obsessed cop who has a secret room with every wall covered with articles, photos, maps, discarded kleenex, schedules, notes, and bizarre unintelligible scribbles - all in one spot that has become a dense, dark, twisted and deeply disturbing vision of the most important object in that person's life. And when that hidden room is discovered, Julia Roberts loses faith in Mel; the cop's partner's world crumbles; and the serial killer's pursuing detective simply pukes.

in the case of Facebook, Myspace - the Internet, for god's sake - the object of our obsession is our own lives. But who is chasing us to the ends of the earth? Who, faced with this hideous vision of our own personal self-obsession, will lose faith in us? Who is our Julia Roberts?

Thinking of you,
Peter

Friday, May 8, 2009

If you don't know the shot, keep your mouth shut


So the new Star Trek movie comes out tomorrow and while I was in the grocery store I picked up the Newsweek that had the U.S.S. Enterprise on the cover. As a Trekker, I bought a copy and brought it home.

I have read all the same articles before over the years. How Star Trek has a vision of hope for the future, how things from Star Trek are now used today in our everyday lives, how the characters from the show are allegorical to this and that from our lives. Blah, blah, blah. These kind of things come out every ten years or so, and I've read them all.

However, this latest article that I read yesterday in Newsweek titled "We're all Trekkers Now" made me fume, because, whoever wrote this... you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

I am not going to get political, I am not saying I am a fan of the Bush 43 Administration, but get your head out of your fucking ass whoever wrote this article. This is what he wrote about Star Trek's Prime Directive (which means that the crew of the Enterprise won't interfere with the development of any planet they come in contact with) and how that compares to the Bush and Obama Administrations and how they go about dealing with foreign countries.

And I quote...

"With the willfully hegemonic Bush administration now gone, the tenets of Roddenberry's fictional universe feel very much in step with current events. Whether you're happy about it or not, the Obama foreign policy, at least for now, emphasizes cross-cultural exchange and eschews imperialistic swagger. That sounds very much in sync with the Federation's Prime Directive, which stipulates that humanity should observe but never interfere with alien cultures (no Iraq-style invasions, in other words)."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat! Did you ever watch the fucking show!? They CONSTANTLY broke the Prime Directive. When Kirk gave Tyree's men the firesticks so they could fight off the other villagers the Klingon's were helping, when they beamed down to Sigma Iotia II and by the end of the episode it was determined that Kirk would come back once a year to get a "cut" of their profits to give to the Federation, when the natives of such and such a planet worshipped a god that took care of them and Kirk didn't think they should do that so he ordered the ship's phasers to kill their god so the natives could then live with self-determined lives instead of serving a god.

I could go on and on.

Obama's a great guy, but so far he's no Captain Kirk. I don't see Obama ordering us into a soverign country to take over (a kind of thing Kirk did a lot of), and I don't see Obama having sex with green women which Kirk did do.

All I'm saying is that the guy that wrote this article about Star Trek and how it applies to the current administration can kiss my ass 'cause he doesn't know what the FUCK he is talking about.

Honestly if you don't know what you're talking about, shut up. Really, shut up.

And I stand by every word I've written, because it's true.

Capt. Kurt

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Why We Run Errands

At a loss, as usual, for something to talk about, I'll describe my day, and the happenings therein.

~ Finally got out of the house around noon-thirty to (amongst other things) return two library books. Spent the morning trying to read one of them since my renewals were capped. (And it's a good thing, too, because I'd renew forever if I could.) One was called Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto, and I found it rather interesting. I'm rather good at being alone, and I like my own company. The author, Anneli Rufus, defends that rather well, and if she's a bit angry about serial killers constantly being equated with "loners" I can't really blame her. The other book was called Why We Love, by Dr. Helen Fisher. I've been reading a lot about her lately, and the book caught my eye. I like that she's trying to figure it all out, and I don't doubt what she says, but all her good research and the smart conclusions don't really make it less of a total freaking mystery, if you ask me.

~ Went to PETCO after the library because I learned they have a sale on the expensive teensy cans of cat food my cats can't apparently live without. Louise is even now meowing the house down for another serving and it's anyone's guess if Savory Salmon will do. Just because she liked it yesterday is absolutely no indication that it will pass muster today.

~ It's super windy out. I kind of like that during the day, but I'm creeped out by night winds. These must be the Santa Anas - it's hot out and will be even hotter tomorrow.

~ The birds are chirping away outside. Debated about traveling out to Sun Valley for more birdseed, but instead stopped and got a much-needed mani-pedi. With the heat and all, my toes are seeing more of the light of day, and they really had no business doing that. I don't like a manicure - emery boards make my skin crawl - but there were some cuticular issues that needed seeing to, so I gritted my teeth and just did it. And yes, I ruined one of the nails by the time I'd sat down in the pedicure chair.

~ I was so hungry by this time, so when I was done I went a few doors down to Uncle Andre's BBQ and got some food options for a couple of meals. I have to say, I'm not so keen on cooking for just me, so getting someone else to make part of a meal has been my recent habit. I forgot, however, that really good BBQ takes time. I sat and waited for a half an hour, hungry. Not a magazine in the place, so I spent my time regretting the whole plan and wishing I were home.

~ So, finally made it, and I pretty much just ate lunch twenty minutes ago. This is ridiculous. It's after 4pm. When will dinner be, now? At a hundred o'clock?

~ Made my travel plans for a New York trip in June, for my aunt's 80th birthday party. I am a giant stressball about traveling, until I'm on the actual trip. Took me forever to work out the flights but I got a hell of a deal - nonstop, roundtrip for $259. That's less than the rental car will be. And about what the housesitting will be. And I wonder why I stress.

OK, so I was thinking I hadn't really done much with my day, but this post is making me feel like it was productive after all. I have many a house project to do, and things to get ready or done for the upcoming trips, but that's a post for another time.

For now, I think I hear the tv calling.

xo,
Jenny

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

There Are No Vampires On Santorini

The title of my as yet to be published (and written) book of travel essays is “There Are No Vampires on Santorini and Other Stuff I’ve Picked Up Along the Way.” I have the title, but that’s about it. I had grand plans to fill my journal with lessons learned and insights gathered on my recent trip abroad. No such luck.

One of my favorite magazines, Budget Travel, has great tips every month from readers. Stuff like:
- Take a digital picture of your luggage and keep it on your camera (print out a copy too) in case the airline loses your stuff.
- a great gift to give new travel buddies abroad is a mix CD of your favorite local musicians who may be difficult to find or are unknown overseas.
- Try dental floss for a clothesline. Works great!

Because I’m otherwise travel essay blocked, I decided to come up with some travel tips of my own.

- When at security just take your shoes off. And, yes, the laptop has to come out of the bag. Is that change in your pocket? Come on people!
- The flight is never as long as it feels, and will have to end at some point. Right?
- Use the bathroom whenever one is available, or at least try to. Unless you’re on the Amazing Race in which case just pee your pants because you…are…in…a…RACE! Stupids.
- Clear local variants of glorified moonshine (raki, grappa, etc.) will MESS YOU UP. Just stick with water. Or beer. Or wine. Just nothing clear, unless it’s water. Promise?
- At the very least, learn how to say “hello,” “please” and “thank you” in the language of whichever region you are visiting. And smile. Smile a lot. This will win the appreciation and affection of whomever you are trying to communicate with, and can also lead to free dessert. Or free drinks. And those free drinks will probably be of the moonshine variety. Please see above.

It’s a work in progress. But at least I've already got my title.

Vintage%20Suitcase

Bone Voyajee,

Gretch

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Truly, I am loved...

In line with Jenny's trouble with advertising copy, I want to offer an alternate paean, if you will, to the world of marketing copy. I just got this letter/notice/note from Comcast. It went like this:

"We have some exciting news regarding the Jade Channel..."

(It's already sounding really good)

"Beginning May 20 the Jade channel will no longer be offered on Comcast's Standard service..."

(I can hardly stand it)

"Instead, Comcast provides Jade Premium 24 hours a day for only 10.95 a month..."

(that's not even the best part)

"...and requires a digital box."

WOW! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? INDEED THAT IS "EXCITING NEWS!"

Finally I can add 11 dollars to my monthly check to Comcast, while at the same time adding another f%^@%#^ing box to my home entertainment system. At last!

Does somebody read this before they mail it out? Does that somebody hate Comcast and want them to look as unconcerned and clueless as possible? Or - and this is what I really believe - did they fire their marketing staff, and build a team of marketing robots? I doubt we'll ever know - it's like the Pentagon at Comcast central.

Peter

Friday, May 1, 2009

Why didn't you tell me!

I am writing this after my third beer.

When I was a waiter, before I would go on the floor, I would do a last check in the mirror to make sure I looked okay, facially, and mostly to make sure I had nothing hanging out of my nose.

However, this would happen about once every seven months. I would check my face and then go to work. About five hours later I would have to go to the bathroom, (there were no f******* mandatory breaks when you were a waiter where I worked) and I would look at my face and, "What the F***! Right there, where my nose and face meet, is the biggest whitehead that grew like Alien on my face.

Not once did one of my co-w0rkers tell me, "Hey Kurt, you got a giant pimple on your face." Thanks for nothing.

Have you ever had that happen to you? It was like the size of one of those pink Hostess Snow Balls. On my face!!

My customers must have been grossed out. I know I would have been.

Yuck.

I'm having another beer.

Kurt