I haven’t said it out loud yet. I’ve only typed it. Maybe I’ll say it out loud later today. Any advice as I move into a new decade today, dear readers?
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Just a few links and a few thoughts:
I doubt I’ll be watching the Oscars live this year due to a work meeting, and my thoughts are Wall-E should take home Best Animated Feature and it would be cool to see Andrew Stanton get Best Original Screenplay. I hope Mickey Rourke snatches up Best Actor for his work in The Wrestler, and Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire deserve their Best Director and Best Picture nods. I haven’t seen everything that’s up this year, but those are my most hopeful award results. Has anyone seen Milk so they can dispute my hopes for Rourke?
The Gaurdian’s got a fun-and-pointless interactive Oscar widget about winner statistics for you to waste a few minutes with today. It’s little web widgets like this that make me consider how neat it is, but how it’s ultimately it doesn’t elevate to much more than “neat” and I wonder how much time and effort went into it as a project. Then I think about my own creative work and wonder if anyone else will find it simply “neat” and I get sad and become a lot more forgiving to the little web widget.
For people like me who are fans of the Oscars and Wordle, the Guardian also has a “neat” trivia game to determine the givers of Oscar acceptance speeches based on their Wordles. I did a quick search and realized this is my first mention of Wordle on this blog, which is quite an oversight on my part because it’s really “neat.” I did one for my thesis last spring; I’ll have to post it for all to see here.
A few interesting articles are surfacing regarding the recent change in Facebook’s privacy settings, including this summary at MSNBC and this brilliant step-by-step how-to for those looking to make their info as private as possible at AllFacebook.com. Just when I think my Facebook profile is relatively private the way I want it, turns out there are plenty of features I’m not taking advantage of (and plenty of issues which are beyond my control). Same for you?
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A quick thought and a hopefully non-empty promise to return to blogging soon:
Who decided the focus of the $838 / $789.5 / $825 billion ever-changing stimulus package should be how much money is involved? Who decided that gets to be the name of the package? Why does President Roosevelt get his “New Deal” and President Obama get a dollar amount? Do we know how much the “New Deal” cost? Most people probably don’t, not unless they specifically seek out the information. All most people know is it worked; they don’t even know about it’s starts and stops, its triumphs and failures along the way – just that it worked.
Is that what time lets us do? Gain distance and lose immediate perspective while gaining general admiration? And if so, is that such a good thing? Because meanwhile, every dollar of the multi-hundred billion dollar stimulus package going into effect these days is open to scrutiny by every discerning soul who cares to offer an opinion.
Just seems backwards and non-progressive to me.
I’ll be back to blogging regularly soon.
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So I watched the presidential debate last night and found the back-and-forth between the two candidates about personal attack issues fascinating. It made me think of something that could have made the debate, while likely not better, at least a little more cool:
If it helps you vote, UrbanDictionary.com has some definitions of OWNED for you (definition #4 is pretty thorough).
Like yesterday’s political poll, I know what the right answer is, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with it 100%.
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As one who wrote editorial cartoons for nearly six years, I wonder if the writers of Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, SNL, and other politically-charged satirical shows are also pondering this (near-) rhetorical question which has been in the back of my mind of recent:
If you’re both a concerned American hoping the country selects the best candidate AND a comedian who loves satire, is it morally wrong to vote for a presidential ticket because the thought of spending the next four years hearing them say ridiculous things is too good a joke to pass up, no matter the outcome for the good of the country?
Ooh, let’s make this our first official poll with our new friend, Micropoll:
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And by the way, I know what the right answer is, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with it 100%.
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Here are seven things I saw which helped me know Joel and Ethan Coen were at Normandale Community College shooting scenes for their next film, A Serious Man, all last week:
1. A scissor lift outside my faculty office window, probably getting that “through the window” shot.
2. Catering trucks in the parking lot (the company was from California).
3. A couple of Fresnel lights on tripods in the outdoor courtyard. Oh, and a ton of cables.
4. Several production assistants with radios and clipboards roaming the halls with determined looks on their faces.
5. A meeting room off the cafeteria set up to be a make-up room. It was guarded by guys at a table talking and drinking coffee.
6. Carpenters building a fake wall in the back room of the library. And I should note, I would not have seen this if I hadn’t needed to go back to a librarian’s desk to look at computer lab scheduling. Basically, #6 was a privilege.
7. An email from the college explaining that the Coen Brothers were on campus shooting scenes for a movie.
Here are seven things I did not see which did not help me know Joel and Ethan Coen were at Normandale Community College shooting scenes for their next film, A Serious Man, all last week
1. Joel Coen.
2. Ethan Coen.
3. Joel and/or Ethan Coen reading my screenplay.
4. Joel and/or Ethan Coen asking me to be in their movie.
5. Francis McDormand.
6. Joel and/or Ethan Coen laughing at my impression of The Dude from The Big Lebowski. My impression, by the way, includes a spot-on interpretation of body language and vocal expression but I still don’t look like Jeff Bridges.
7. Cameras. Not a single one. I thought that was kinda weird.
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Is it strange for one to listen to Marketplace on National Public Radio and grin to oneself or even outright laugh when, during their “Do the Numbers” segment on the US stock market index final standings for the day, they play “We’re in the Money” in the background when stocks are up, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” when stocks fluctuate, and “Stormy Weather” when stocks are down?
Is it odd for one to get at least mildly excited and then immediately disappointed when “Burnin’” by Daft Punk starts to play but ends up only being background music to an hourly station identification for 89.3 The Current, a station which by all accounts feels like it should be Daft Punk-friendly yet seemingly never has any full Daft Punk songs played as part of their programming playlist?
Is it bizarre for one to be listening to National Public Radio‘s news prgrams, or special hour-long segments about war, or even pundits discuss the latest political ballyhoo, only to feel as though they have a profound sense of what’s hip and to feel some sort of cosmic, kismet-like connection with some secretly suave NPR producer who’s decided if the program ends early, to broadcast approximately one minute of filler music by Air?
Between noticing background music cues and my private little game* of reciting “From NPR news in Washington, I’m…” and “From Minnesota Public Radio news, I’m…” along with the news reader and trying to say their name in succinct unison by recognizing their voice, it’s pretty clear I have an unhealthy obsession with NPR nuances.
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* In my private little game, I can readily identify Jack Speer, Carl Castle, Lac Shmi Sing, Ann Taylor, William Wilcoxen, and Gretta Cunningham uncannily well, by the way. Craig Windham and Korva Coleman are tricky, while Phil Picardi and Steven John sound like exactly the same.
We’re off for Labor Day Weekend so Your Monday Prompt will return next week. In the meantime…
WordPress has made a few changes and updates to its users behind-the-scenes Dashboard (all for the better, if you ask me) but one thing they haven’t changed is their beautiful teamwork with Askimet to deliver excellent spam comment control. Every once in a while, I pop into my spam box and cheerfully click the “Delete All” button but hey, let’s celebrate my three favorite spam comments this week:
1. My congratulation with gold’s second place on Olympic Games. Volleyball team was the best!
Aw, thanks, that’s sweet! I didn’t really help them out all that much, but I like to think that gold belongs to all of us.
2. HI Regards to owner of http://www.scrawlers.com – you create a splendid portal in the Internet! Rate please my little blog: (naughty, naughty links deleted). Excuse me for mistakes – I have bad English. Thank you.
No, thank you, for giving props to my “splendid portal.” But I really had no need for the naughty, naughty links. Your mistake isn’t your bad English (it comes with time and practice), but rather your not complimenting my “splendid portal” more often. Heh. Portal.
Finally, let me take you through my thought process as I read this comment:
3. scholarships,
So far, so good…
research
I like it, I like it…
and classroom project information.
Hey, this sounds right up my alley!
Partners & Model (link to new flashy drugs deleted).
…Huh?! Er, that’s quite a jump in topics, methinks. Ladies and gentlemen, this spam comment is the definitive definition of “non sequitor.”
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