Had a thought today about what is so damn familiar about the rhetoric and attitudes being thrown around.

It reminds me of the lead up to the Civil War.

Rural interests fighting to keep their 'way of life' through controlling the political process in the Senate and the White House. Rural devoted to a slow population growth economy while the Urban forces have high birthrate and high immigration (tipping the balance of the representatives to the Urban areas).

The argument starts to pull away from "your economic structure is hurting people" to "it's a States' Rights issue, keep the gov't outta my bizness".

Not really much more than a scent on the wind as far as precedents go, but interesting nonetheless.

I think I found the perfect way to describe my experience with Baysplosions 2: plosBaysyness Revenge of the Fallen.

It's like watching the Oscars without having seen any of the nominees. There are these clips, and the clips by themselves may seem pretty good. They may be attractive. But out of context, you can only say "hunh, wonder what that was about" or "that's the best you could pull from the movie out of all the performances? Really?" or "I bet that has a deeper meaning, but looks pretty silly to me".

Then, you take all the clips and string them together (repeating the Best FX, Sound, and Editing categories over and over), and send it off to the Studio. They in turn send out a second unit to create SOME sort of a narrative to make it seem like there's some vague sense, give the marketing department a case of gin (a bottle each) to sooth their nerves, and send it to the theatre.

I was physically ill for a day afterward. Actually, physically ill. 'Cloverfield' just made me dizzy and queasy. I had to sleep all of Sunday. A Bay-over, if you will. I make these promises to protect myself, and then I break them over and over.

Never again. I will not suffer through another one of Bay's movies. Just thinking about it makes me ill. My mind tries too hard to put a narrative where none exists. I just can't do it anymore.

This Achewood comic is painfully funny

I'm only halfway through the article, but I HAD to post. Unfortunately, this is not something easily (or properly) done on Facebook.

Ever have one of those niggling stoner-esque questions come up that you'd really like the answer to, but for various reasons would never research yourself? Yeah, me too. All the time.

So do some people at University, including one evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup of SUNY Albany. His question? "Why is the penis shaped like that?"

I don't know what's better - finding out the answer to the question, the relaying of the experiment of how he demonstrated his hypothesis, prior research (magnetic imaging studies. Kinsey'd be proud), or the sheer, unbridled joy of Jesse Bering at Scientific American who is relating the story. You can practically hear the delete key in action as he mutters "Nope. Must. Be. Professional... *glee*!" What does leak through is simply Made of Awesome.

Really, you need to read this: Secrets of the Phallus. There are no pics, and it's more or less a clinical discussion so it's pretty SFW, but keep in mind the subject matter. And the fact that there is visible strain in the writing keeping away from the Richard jokes.

Oh, and here's a follow up article.

A brilliant list of movie summaries which are true. From a certain point of view.

Uncomfortable Plot Summaries.

A sample: SUPERMAN RETURNS: Illegal immigrant is deadbeat dad.

Discovered from Neil Gaiman's site where he acknowledges the awesome, and that he's being poked fun at.

I second this emotion: amused

After much deliberation, I have concluded that wife beaters must come back as male Anglerfish.

Quick note to SoCal peeps - one of the on-lot movers (who is a friend of my dept) lost his entire house to fire this morning. He lost everything but the clothes on his back and his pets (2 turtles, 1 cat, 2 dogs, 1 hamster, 1 rabbit, 1 pigeon). If you have any spare clothes, housewares, or pet supplies, please contact me to make arrangements and I'll bring it to work on Monday.

Thanks!

My peeve is loose and lose, but I can see John and Jon being annoying too.

Oh, and the comments are great, especially this:( cut to preserve the joke in above link )

I second this emotion: amused

I'm re-watching Batman:the Animated Series. I'm on Season 4 (I'll Scratch Your Back), where Catwoman "teams up" with Nightwing with some pretty heavy sexual overtones. I suddenly realized that, given Bruce's age coming back to Gotham, when Bruce met Catwoman, when Bruce adopted Dick, and at what age Dick went from Robin to Nightwing, Catwoman is, in fact, a cougar.

It made me smile.

I second this emotion: amused

I'm searching out trax for my short and learning about licensing. Though it's remote, I'd like the option to submit to festivals (Victor Navone had all sorts of troubles because "Alien Song" didn't have the proper license for "I Will Survive") or have my reel on my site without removing the music.

Audiosparks has a wonderful and clear, common-language summation of what goes on with licensing music.

Pretty fascinating and informative.