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Month: November 2012

Rough Morning

This morning our espresso machine wasn’t working. You can only imagine the fit of despair this threw me into, but fortunately that didn’t stop me from trying to fix it. First, I unplugged it. I counted to five. Then I plugged it in again. It didn’t work, so I unplugged our tea maker. What does the teamaker have to do with the espresso machine, you ask. I don’t know. At the time it felt right.

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Monday Movie Review: Silver Lining Playbook

Let us continue with the new schedule! On Mondays, I endeavor to provide you compelling reviews of movies I have seen. The top of the post will have a movie poster, because that will be visually appealing. Beneath the poster will be the most thoughtful, perhaps provocative, and no-spoilers sort of review that will make you grateful you checked in here before seeing the movie.

Silver Linings Playbook Poster

Today’s movie is Silver Lining Playbook. We saw it on Sunday.

This movie is very good. I give it 18 Bells.
18 Bells

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Perhaps Not My Finest Post

As you know, Sunday is the day for “Personal Anecdote.” I thought Sundays would be the day I could come up with clever stories about my life, helping me to open up with the world and share my feelings. But I have blogger’s block. If this is how you feel about me, that is fair.

You're tacky, and I hate you.

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Political Scandal!

Saturday’s topic is politics! While there are many devastating things happening in the world today, I have been particularly anxious to talk about how much I love the Petraus scandal. I imagine when everyone first heard about it, we did that thing where we slap our palm against our forehead in despair. Then, as we all heard more about the scandal, I think our mouths dropped and our eyes widened. I know the new tidbit that impressed me was the 20,000- 25,000 pages of emails exchanged between the Florida socialite and the other general. That is a lot of emails. They must both be formidable typists, we must have all thought, as a nation. I imagine they type no less than 45/55 words per minute, because otherwise who has the time to be such a prolific emailer!?

I also loved the FBI shirtless photo that was revealed to the public. Never before has a playful joke photo backfired so masterfully. I can’t wait until one of my friends becomes a public figure. If they become mired in a scandal, I will be the first to step forward: “He once sent me a picture of him…dressed as Quail Man, from Doug. As you can see, he is wearing his underwear outside of his pants. Read into that what you will, but I’m just saying, it’s not right. Maybe it was for Halloween, maybe it wasn’t. There’s no way to be sure with this kind of man.”

Anyway, I’ve noticed the media has been covering this scandal less, as the Israel Palestine conflict continues to get more violent. Let’s hope they remember to give this scandal continued in-depth coverage as more details emerge*!

*I’m only sort of kidding.

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An Ode to David’s Electronics

David I love your dark curly hair.
It matches all of the cool outfits you wear.
And it matches your electronics very much as well,
But all of those items are not as swell.

I think you have a terrible addiction –
Thankfully not a medical affliction
But you love new gadgets, you really do.
Not having the new google phone makes you blue!

And you research new tablets all the time,
But I really can’t tell why each is sublime.
So you tell me, excitedly, about the new feature,
Alas it’s like speaking to a foreign creature.

It all looks the same, but it brings you such glee!
I do like to see you look so very happy
And I’ll be supportive, not be a boor,
But boy will I be mad if this love makes us poor.

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Thursday Sportz

As you probably guessed, one of my major goals around this site was to create an environment that encouraged me to write. I ran into a couple obstacles however:

1) Ideas. I struggled with material to write about.
2) Audience. I never wanted to offend my audience. Technically I have overcome this obstacle. By not posting, I managed to avoid ever developing an audience.
3) Being happy. Knock on wood, I’ve been really happy for years. This is terrible for the creative process, and I mostly blame David.

In addition to stifling my angst-driven creativity, David pointed out that a lot of times writers struggle when they don’t have boundaries. And this Oatmeal post confirms that as well.

So I’ve developed an ambitious schedule of topics that will serve as boundaries and provide me some structure to follow for as long as I care to.

Saturday: Politics
Sunday: Personal anecdote
Monday: Movie critique
Tuesday: Book critique
Wednesday: Day off
Thursday: Sports review
Friday: David Ode

Today is Thursday, so I have to write about sports. It’s part of the schedule.

There are lots of sports out there, but the one I’m most interested in is Comedy Sportz. Technically not your run of the mill athletic exercise, Comedy Sportz is intense, heart-rate increasing, and entertaining. Two teams of players perform a series of improvisational activities, driven by audience requests. The audience’s laughter determines the winner.

It requires team work and listening to the people around you, because you have to work off of what they say and do. I really enjoy comedy sportz, but I’m not very good at them. This is in part because I have what people refer to as a “dark” sense of humor. For example, one of our warm up exercises is called “Nothing better than!”

So one person starts:
Nothing better than a picnic!

And the next person has to add on in some way:
Nothing better than a picnic with the one you love!

And the next person contributes:
Nothing better than a picnic on a warm Fall day!

And I go:
Nothing better than hoping this picnic makes him finally love you back.

And then no one laughs, and I own what I’ve just said like it’s actually something personal. I have to do this, so no one thinks I have a bad sense of humor. “I’m going through some things,” I’ll mutter. My colleagues give me looks of sympathy. And I look embarrassed.

But I never learn! Rather, the following topics make me laugh most: loneliness, despair, fertility, infertility, and mortality, obviously.

I have my first performance Saturday. Let’s hope it goes well!

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