Early "Mad About You" Helen Hunt was heartbreakingly hot. I provide these grainy screencaps as proof:

She also proves my thesis that women look really hot in pajama pants, and, by extension, more women should wear pajama pants in public:

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You don't watch as much television during the day as I do, so you may not have heard of Boniva (pronounced BONE-eeeva). You know, for your bones. (Thank god it's not for E.D.) This is like naming Tylenol "Headacheiva" or naming Vicodin "Relaxiva." Fuck that. Drug names used to be cool. Percoset, Xanex, Thorazine, Prozac. In the past few years it's all gone down hill (Lipitor, Paxil, et al), sure, but at least they DIDN'T HAVE THE NAME OF THE THING THEY TREAT IN THE NAME OF THE DRUG ITSELF. You know who I blame? The antidepressant Wellbutrin.

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This last week's episode of "How I Met Your Mother" ("The Pinapple Incident") was the best yet. They're replaying previous champ "The Sweet Taste of Liberty" next Monday, so check it out. (CBS, 8,30 Eastern, 7,30 Central)

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I am seriously considering joining the Church of Reality.

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Oh, and this:

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I also think my cake-coveting gland is enlarged.

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"Hard Rain," "The Times They are A'Changin'," and even "Blowin' in the Wind" are good songs to remind you that the progressive movement used to really be about something. We've still got goals, but nothing that's as well expressed as "and how long must some people exist / before they're allowed to be free?" The closest we come is "How long until we are able to put together a sensible plan to get medical coverage to those in need of it?" We're still for these things, it's just that we got the most egregious of our problems remedied and now we're having trouble figuring out how to make the rest of our agenda sound achievable / needed. I mean, we're in the middle of this war and musicians are putting out political speech left and right and what even approaches the magic of "and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?"

And it's not fair to compare present-day artists to the gold-standard for protest songs, but, fucking really? The fucking standard bearers for modern anti-gov music are fucking Green Day and the damn Decembrists. And the song itself (that is, sans video) for "16 Military Wives" is more about being clever than accomplishing something.

Earlier we had this fight with Lars being pro-political speech in songs/art and Christina being against it. To summarize what I took away from her position, it was mostly that it's nearly impossible to argue a political position in the necessary complexity (i.e. without either sounding stupid/ignorant or simplistic) in a piece of art. Which, given the narrowness of modern political problems, I understand, particularly in the sense she elucidated with respect to the fact that more often than not, you're preaching to the choir. And while these are excellent points that I by and large agree with, I think that political speech can be the kind of thing we ought to at least try and undertake, particularly with respect to popular music (as that, generally, is in opposition to 'artistic' music).

But I don't know, it's getting to be that the points that I want to make are sufficiently simple that perhaps a song could make them. "People are going broke and dying because they can't afford medical coverage." It's not a solution, but it's an elucidation of why the problem matters, which I think is what may just be missing in a lot of modern discourse, and that's what art is best at, I think, saying "This is something you should look into."

If one out of every ten people wrote their congressman demanding anything it would be passed in a week. There are 295 million people in America and 435 Representatives, which shakes out to nearly 68,000 letters per Congressman. And that's with only ten percent of people writing letters. So if we start pounding on these issues (universal, low-cost healthcare, reproductive rights, civil liberties on which, by the way, the vast majority of the people agree with us) in public and organize a public conscience about these things, there's a chance to actually get something done. And not getting anything done is why we hate the congress, right?

Maybe what I'm saying is: it's time to stop bitching about who runs the show and start trying to tell them what matters to us and get it fixed. Because, in all honesty, I don't give a fuck who runs congress as long as we're moving forward and things are getting better. That's not been happening and it may be time to get outside the system and into something like mass letter-writing to get something done. And maybe that makes me sound naive or idealistic, and it's certainly not fashionable to be the latter, but something's got to be done and we've got to at least try.

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I get to see my boy John Edwards speak at Trinity University tomorrow, suckaz!

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I don't know why, but "Futures" by Jimmy Eat World made me spontaneously cry the other day.

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I put my UofA grad ap in the mail tomorrow.

1) I totally had this dream last night where Lars was interning with the people from Grey's Anatomy. Izzie was being a bitch to him but he and Christina Yang (Sandra Oh) totally got along great.

2) I am now coming out about this, as Lars was so strong to do months ago: I like "Las Vegas." It is not good, but I like it. A lot. A lot. Which is dumb. But it's got a ... verve that I've not seen anywhere else lately. It addresses itself witha  tremendous volume of energy, week in and week out, so even though it's an hour long and has got soap-opera-ish and dramatic qualities... you know what? Fuck trying to explain it. Bullet points:
* I like it.
* I understand it's a guilty pleasure.
* Good call, Lars.

3) I have to get hammered today with no Justin. Which is dumb.

4) I saw "Shopgirl" the day it came out. I've avoided reviewing it (and hence it's created somewhat of a backlog in my movie-review-queue)  because my ideas are complicated about it and I feel/felt so very strongly about the book. Basically: it is not the same as the book. The book is amazing. Claire Danes has a strong Claire-Dansian-Strength she brings to Mirabelle, whose defining feature throughout much of the book (almost to a misogynistic fault) is her fragility. That, combined with the fact that the movie is funnier--and is trying to be--and that it's not as closely bound just to Mirabelle makes for a very different experience. There are some things that are touching in the book, affecting in their way that made the transition well, there are some that have been rejiggered and loose their blind-siding effectiveness. A generally successful outing, particularly in it's comdedic aspects. And Jason Schwartzman makes the perfect Jeremy. But seriously: the book might change your life.

5) Alias will be ending soon (at the end of this season?).

6) Threshold has been canceled. (Thank god it happened before it got any worse.)

7) "Jarhead" was excellent, and, as Christen put it, 'unexpectedly sad.' And it's true, it was. Not about war and dissaffection so much as it's about modern war-being-near, the millitary and why you, personally, happen to be there. It's also about goals and denial of them. Really well executed.

Bonus: "Where the Truth Lies" was awesome, and not just because it's unrated for the amount of all kinds of sex and boobies in it. The last double cross, perhaps, took a little too long to get to. But man, were there boobs along the way. So that was nice
Seriously, though, set in the seventies--and prettily shot with a palate to match--it's about the journalist going after the story of Martin and Lewis-esque comedy team that's got a secret and broke up years ago because of it. Often in this type of movie, the secrets, the double-crosses, the random connections feel somewhat tacked on, and I think this film avoids it because its complexity is essential to it's structure and I think that's because it was a novel first, and you get a sense of that in the way the next-to-final three or four revelations are revealed and that they are, indeed, essential in every way. Sometimes confusing, always compelling and suprising, "Where the Truth Lies" was pretty damn good, pretty damn good, indeed.

Making fun of hipsters went from being unhip to hip to deeply unhip in the past two years and I've been out of the loop long enough that I just don't know what the current status is. I like that, because it allows me to enjoy jokes like this, from toothpaste for dinner:

An old episode of "The Drew Carey Show" was on the other day, featuring one Lori Loughlin, who is a superfox. And I was thinking about that, then I realized that I can name all the actors from the main cast of "Full House." Which made me feel like a dork. But I bet you can do it, too, so the first person to name, in the comments, the six actors who played family members on "Full House" (without the help of IMDB, damnit) wins... a dollar. Seriously. A dollar, via paypal. And I'll even spot you Candice Cameron.

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Update: Lori Loughlin at her early nineties foxiest.
Also: Matt totally smoked you all. As I expected he would. Keep an eye out, I'm thinking I may do one or two of these a week. Especially as in January I'll have a job. (Le sigh...)
As a consolation prize, you ALL win this short reel of uncensored Full House outtakes [via lindsayism]. Nothing beats uncle Joey calling uncle Jesse a dipshit.

My pick for wicked-cool song of the day? The Empire Strikes Backwards [iTMS] by the Bad Plus. No matter what your opinion of the iTunes Music Store, surf that link above right now and ring that fucker up. 'Cause you know what? The Bad Plus are cool to listen to and the song is them playing the theme to motherfucking EMPIRE STRIKES BACK fucking BACKWARDS. And it's AWESOME.
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Other The Bad Plus news: buy their new album off iTunes, not in the store. Whether you run a Mac or a PC, if you've not heard this before, several new Sony CDs infect your computer with rootkit DRM badness. Fuck that noise. The good news of all this Sony/DRM crap? The list of albums that infect with said bullshit alerted me that there was a new Bad Plus album. So that rocked. All else sucked. Especially the new trojan that's using this shit to fuck people up. BoingBoing on defending yourself against future hackery by Sony-CD.

Premise: Mo' money, mo' problems.
Premise: I already have problems.
Premise: I have no money.
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Conclusion: My life would suck pretty hard if I had any money.

italisizy:
I'm glad you liked 'The Weatherman.' I was beginning to think that 1) no one read me, or remembered what they read when they were done and 2) I might've oversold the movie.

madgeek451
i read it.  i don't think anyone reads mine.  not that they should.  i don't have much worth reading, nor do i update often.

italisizy
It's about consistency of updating, something I'm struggling with now that I've got "things" I "actually have to do" rather than just "masturbate."

Today I saw Gore Verbinski direct Nicholas Cage in "The Weatherman."

I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to say about this movie other than:
1) It was excellent.
2) It was far funnier than I had been led to expect.
3) There were portions that were wildly, deliciously inappropriate, yet still germain to the text of the film.
4) It was touching without being saccherine, trite or predictable.
5) If you look at it in profile, you discover that Nicholas Cage's nose is increadibly well constructed. Like, top ten noses all time. Seriously.
6) The movie was stunningly well photographed.
7) Hope Davis (also in "Proof.") is awesome.
8) Michael Caine was excellent--Excellent!--as the dissaffected/old/kinda weird grandfather.
9) The whole thing was just terrifficly, fantastically well constructed. It explores, as the title and movie poster would suggest, the life of Nick Cage as a weatherman. But more it's about how his life went subtly, then tremendously, off course. And, again, it's just terriffic. It's not a subjectitivist, slipping away sort of drama like 'Proof,' nor a I-am-in-desperate-need-of-change story like a lot of my work, but something a little like both of them and lot unlike anything I've ever seen before. I cannot say enough good things about it. I'll tell you this, of the movies I've watched since I started going to movies on Tuesdays (Red Eye, Wedding Crashers, The Baxter, Lord of War, Proof, Just Like Heaven (which I didn't bother reviewing because it was just, like, alright), and hell, throw in the Tucson-viewed The Aristocrats and Serenity), of all those movies, all of which I gave good reviews to, because they were good or did some particular thing well and because I pick the movies I see very carefully, I'll tell you this, by way of comparing those movies to this one: this movie blows any one of them out of the water. SO BEST. So in conclusion:
10) GO SEE IT. It opened in sixth place, so they need your dollars to show that people really do like good movies. Go see it. This is the first time in a long time that my life was made better by a movie. Go see it.

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In related news: I know that I don't provide much in the way of reasons to see the movies I recommend, other than that they're pretty or feature good performances or a good story, which any reviewer will do, but a lot of reviewers string you along with a least a few bars of plot. And I won't/don't. Not that I don't think it shouldn't be done, but if you're dying for a description, you can read the summary online or the one-line description from imdb.com, and, if you've seen the ads or the trailer, you probably already know more about the plot than I or the writer or the filmmaker are comfortable with. Plot isn't everything. But it's a lot and it's the thing about a movie that can be ruined.
And not even that you 'give away the ending,' but rather, I, and I know Matt also does, sometimes, go into the theater having heard or seen (in a commercial or trailer) a specific plotpoint and wait for a good bulk of the movie for that plot point to come around. I'm constantly trying to figure out when it'll show up and in what context. And that ruins it, for me. So I don't do plot summaries. I won't do much other than broad plot outlines.
The Weatherman: Nick Cage is a weatherman with troubles to which things occur.
And there are some hilarious jokes, but I will relate none of them here because you might see the movie (I hope) and the movie does them better than I ever will.
So that's what I have to say about that.