Not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

Must borrow experimental dogs.

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:32:51 GMT

If I had a dog, I'd be experimenting on it at home right now.

Sadly, I am under no illusions about this working on our cats. They don't give a damn about empathizing with us.

Worth a giggle

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:13:58 GMT

Apparently there have been a couple of "unintended" (well, maybe, it's hard to prove) gaffes involving billboards and marquees for the Will Smith movie Hancock, with signs going up or coming down:

Though this one is worse.

Also, I am 12. But apparently other people are too. Tee-hee!

Mild gripe, mild happy

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:14:20 GMT

Okay, you officially know you've been working too hard and your days are too long when Friday night is exciting because you finally get to clean the kitchen.

That said, it was a pretty productive weekend of cleaning and gardening and organizing and watching some movies and reviewing stuff, and I even made it over to Erin & Wil's for chapter two of the Sharpe saga, starring Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, but in this case also featuring a wow-he-was-no-less-craggy-15-years-ago Daniel Craig as a gambler-rapist-gentleman-fop-killer-lieutenant dude. As insidian apparently promised, we duly got to see Sharpe shot, shagged, and shirtless. Apparently that happens every episode. Also, homoeroticism: not subtle.

This will be a nasty, brutish, and short work week, and then I'm off to visit thefirethorn and her brood in Oklahoma. Hot, Augusty Oklahoma. Well, at least I got the kitchen cleaned before I went.

The nae-so-silent podcast

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:36:03 GMT

Saw the X-Files movie last night; can't really comment on it before opening day without potentially getting The Onion in trouble. But today, Editor Josh and Writer Nathan and Web Guy Paul and I all sat down to record our podcast review on it. Unfortunately, there's feedback cropping up in the system, and we had to stop and sit quietly while Paul fiddled with the system and got frustrated. Eventually…

Josh: [Whispering.] It's the silent podcast.

Me: [Singing to Europe's "The Final Countdown."] It's the siiiiilent podcast!

Josh, Nathan, and Paul, singing in chorus: DOO DA DOO DOO, DOO DA DOO DOO DOO, DOO DA DOO DOO, DOO DA DOO DOO DIT DOO…

I cracked up. Paul told me I was easily amused. But it was really a perfect moment. Some days it's worth coming to work.

Though I only barely came to work today. I had a 10 a.m. screening of an animated kids' film that was just terrible, and then I went down to the Harold Washington Library to pick up a book we need for art scans for this week's Inventory, and then I took the train up to Belmont to go to Chicago Comics to get a second book we needed for the same piece, and then I dropped by Graham Cracker Comics in hope that they had a book that we haven't been able to find at all, and then I picked up lunch and took the bus down to Chicago and walked the rest of the way to the office, by which time it was nearly 3 p.m. I'm feeling sunburnt and woozy; it's a beautiful day, but I spent a lot of it hauling around an increasingly huge bag o' books.

And now I have to rush out a few more edited pieces, and then it's off to a screening of Tropic Thunder. Blarg, it's been a busy day for a day featuring only work that's not much work.

SHRIEK

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:23:28 GMT

Run out of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog glee yet?

Check out the link Genevieve just sent me at work. A Sesame Street preview with a singing, dancing Neil Patrick Harris as a magic shoe fairy. Complete with wings.

Bwah ha ha ha.

My throat hurts now.

Editing as agenda

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:31:15 GMT

How to tell when CNN isn't even trying to make the cops look good…

From a current story about a man Tasered to death by police. It's pretty ugly… he was Tased nine times, beginning with when he was already cuffed and on the ground — supposedly the cops thought he wasn't getting up for them quickly enough — and then again at point-blank range once he was in the back of the police car. The coroner thinks he was already dead after seven shocks, but the cop dragged his unresponsive body out of the police car and Tased him two more times anyway. As always seems to be the case in these things, the police officer was white, the man who was killed was black…

But Winnfield police Lt. Chuck Curry said race "isn't an issue at all" in the matter.

"This has come down to a police officer that was trying to apprehend a suspect that they had warrants for," he said. "He done what he thought he was trained to do to bring that subject into custody. At some point, something happened with his body that caused him to go into cardiac arrest or whatever."

I will lay down money that the writer thought at some point "Do I clean up that quote to make the cop sound smarter, more responsible, more in control? No. No, I do not."

Well, that was [spoiler redacted…]

rollick@livejournal.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:58:51 GMT

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, part III…

…not what I was expecting. But Joss is good about that.

How'd you take it?

Watchmen trailer first look

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:20:00 GMT

Okay, I knew intellectually that the upcoming Watchmen movie was going to look pretty much exactly like a darker, heavier version of Dave Gibbons' art for Watchmen, because the film is being directed by Zach Snyder, who directed 300. Which I didn't much like — it was ridiculously bombastic and heavy-handed and over-the-top — but it looked like a frame-by-frame screen translation of Frank Miller's art.

I knew this intellectually.

But catechism just showed me the trailer for Watchmen, and I think I had a squeegasm. Knowing what Doctor Manhattan looks like didn't really prepare me for seeing him in the glowing naked flesh. And the bit at the end? On Mars? Man.

I was, frankly, unthrilled at Dark Knight. It's a beautifully made and in all ways competent and mostly very smart film that just utterly failed to touch me except in one moment, involving "Tiny" Tommy Lister on a boat. I have no need to see it again. But I suddenly really wish I could be in a theater on opening night just to hear the crowd's first reaction to this trailer.

Oh IMDB news, why do I read you?

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:14:40 GMT

Jolie Doctor: 'Twins Are Cute'

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twin babies are "so cute", according to the doctor who delivered them.

Seriously? Babies are cute? CELEBRITY babies are cute? That's amazing! Most hard-hitting news story ever! Thank god the headline writer was able to condense the important thrust of this news story into the equally hard-hitting headline! (Somewhere out there, a news reporter's soul is dying as s/he contemplates what IMDB News makes him/her write… if it wasn't too late for that shriveled soul long ago.)

Although I was also pretty tickled by the brief explaining that Will Ferrell was given a third of a racehorse as part of a "goody bag" at the ESPY Sports Awards. Seriously? Now why don't the traditionally ridiculous goody bags at the Oscars include parts of livestock, I ask you?

Bikes aplenty!

rollick@livejournal.com — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:14:39 GMT

There was a no-occasion party at magdalene1's place Friday night, which was fun and chatty for a while, but then it was hot and I'd had less than six hours of sleep and I knew I had to be up early for a 10 a.m. screening all the way downtown, so I bailed by 11 and dragged my half-conscious carcass home. We all but picked up the same party with many of the same people last night at ladymajor and phaedrusdeinus' going-away party. I'd gotten up early, gone to the movie (Oy. Space Chimps.), run a bunch of errands, got my hair cut, and then came home and slept through the hot part of the day, so I was much more coherent and fun-havey, and I spent a lot of time talking with both the departees after the party quieted down around 1 a.m.

Eventually, around 2 or so, I figured it was time to leave, and I offered Phaed and Lady a ride home, since they live to hell and gone south, and were otherwise going to have to try to rustle up a cab in a residential neighborhood at bar-closing time on a Saturday. So off we headed south.

We ran right into L.A.T.E. Ride, an annual charity 25-mile bike procession that starts at 1:30 a.m. at Buckingham Fountain downtown and lasts through the night. We didn't know anything about it, so as we were riding south and ran into the first flotilla of a couple dozen bikers, we kind of went "Hey, look, cyclists at 2:30 a.m. Neat!" The people in the cars around us seemed similarly baffled; one guy kept yelling out his window, over and over and over, "Why the bikes? What's the cause? Hey, what's going on?" but the bikers were speeding by too quickly to answer him.

Then there was another group of several dozen. Then another and another. Then a steady stream of bikes in twos and threes. The police took control of the intersection, and were blocking people from turning onto Elston. Naively, I assumed they were sheparding this little group of a hundred or so strung-along bikers, and once we got around them, we'd be fine, so I took a side road and got onto Elston going south. We'd gone half a mile or so when I realized there was no one else driving on the road at all, and we were heading upstream into hundreds upon hundreds of cyclists.

It was a little eerie being alone in a car out there, but seeing all the bikers — old people, kids, serious cyclists in sleek helmets and Spandex, neighborhood teens with no special equipment — all pouring along together like a giant bike river. We wondered if it was some special Critical Mass event or what.

Eventually, we hit another police roadblock and were diverted. The cop there had nothing but a flashlight to signal with, and wasn't wearing a traffic vest, so he wasn't very visible and he seemed really, really frustrated, flashing his light rapidly in drivers' eyes as if to communicate in Morse code, and yelling "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Stop! You, stop! STOP! Go! Pull up pull up pull up pull up GO GO STOP GO!" Which led to this:

Me: Okay, we're off our route and I have no idea which way we're going now. What's next?

ladymajor: Keep going straight.

phaedrusdeinus: But stop at this red light.

Me: Okay, I do not need to be told to obey basic traffic laws. I'm willing to take instruction from anyone not trying to use a flashlight to stand in for the entire English language, but I still have enough presence of mind to stop at lights.

phaedrusdeinus: I don't think that guy was trying to flash out every word in the English language. Just "STOP," "GO," and "DAMMIT."

I got the giggles something serious at that point. I was tired and giddy with surreality.

Then we got to Phaed and Lady's neighborhood and dropped them off, and they suggested we follow Chicago to Milwaukee, turn onto Odgen, and take 90/94 home. No problem! Except that when we got to Milwaukee, it was MADE OUT OF CYCLISTS. There were no cops in the area yet — just so many bikers that they took up all four lanes, north and southbound, though they were all going north. There was a solid wall o' bikers, appearing out of the dark, gliding almost silently in front of us, and disappearing into the dark in the north. It was vaguely ghostly and eerie, like watching a massive herd of buffalo cross the plains. I was actually kind of envious. Clearly ALL OF CHICAGO was out biking. Why hadn't I been informed?

The lights at the intersection cycled four times without the car in front of us even attempting to get through on the green lights; there was just no point in attempting to cut through that stream of people. Eventually, the police showed up and took control and let us through. Turning onto Milwaukee — which we were only able to do because we were effectively making an almost-U-turn onto Ogden, and turning away from the crowd — we were able to see down Milwaukee, which to the south was just a four-lane-wide sea of bikers, as far as the eye could see. And then we were on the highway and away from it all.

Man. I really want to be a part of this event next year. Though I can't quite imagine biking all night. Maybe I should start resting up now.

Hate never makes me strong

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:10:32 GMT

Never do I hate our website's commentators more than when we run an interview with a successful, interesting, attractive woman.

I don't know which is worse — the people helpfully opining that her work and the interview suck, but they would still bang her, or the people dissecting her looks and deciding that no, they actually would NOT grace her with the no-doubt much-desired gift of a banging. Wait, no! There are also the people who've never read her work, but know that they'd hate it because she kind of looks like a pretentious bitch! But they would bang her anyway.

Oh wait, WAIT wait, I know, the worst is the one saying she looks "like one of those chicks that talks about anal like it's kinky and fun, but then you get her naked and she's like, 'no way, buddy.'"

God, Internet. GO AWAY.

I'm already suffering squeeloss just thinking about it

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:54:34 GMT

I've been having focus problems today, thanks to the tired and to all the stuff I have to do.

Tomorrow will not be about focusing so much as not going crazy with the sheer amount of crack:

10 a.m. Early IMAX screening of The Dark Knight with the whole A.V. Club crowd. IMAX at 10 a.m. will wake you up better than coffee, yo.

1 p.m. We taste-test magic flavor berries, and various items presumably altered by magic flavor berries.

3 p.m. Interview with the Luna Brothers, the guys behind my current favorite comic book, The Sword. (First trade collection out last Wednesday. Get on it, comics fans.)

7 p.m. Critics' screening of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

That's so much squee in one day that I expect to be utterly squeed out by midday at the latest. My job rocks.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I need to do eight hours of work. I'll get right on that.

Whuh?

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:46:14 GMT

Okay, this is how out of it I am… I got to work and found out I'd missed the Monday morning conference call because I completely forgot about it.

The same planning conference call we have every week. EVERY FREAKIN' WEEK for I don't know how many years now. And I just… forgot.

I need a nap.

Sleep and reading, the finer things in life

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:57:33 GMT

Well, that was a wee bit freaky — I think I completely overdid it out in the blazing sun yesterday, working on my gardens and then grocery shopping at a couple of places in my bakey, un-air-conditioned car. By 2 p.m. I was feeling like total collapse, but I propped myself up on the couch and watched Flashdance (which I'd never seen and was hoping would be a positive surprise, like Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, but which instead turned out to be pretty awful) and Ninja Resurrection, which was also awful and which I was reviewing for a freelance gig. By the time I finished the review, it was 8 p.m. and just sitting upright was a huge and painful effort. So I went to bed with a book and was unconscious with the light on 15 minutes later. Cass had to come in and pry my sweaty clothes off. And then I slept for 12 hours. Normally if I go to bed before midnight I feel like I was cheated out of an evening, so in this case, I'm just kind of baffled. And still weary, which is bad, since this is going to be a week of late nights and long days, with two interviews, two night screenings, and then a weekend full of parties. Than which there are worse things, but I just kinda want to go back to bed.

At least I finally managed to finish the new David Sedaris book over the weekend — I've been poking listlessly at it for three weeks now, neither finishing it nor starting anything else. With that out of the way I was able to tear through David Schwartz's Superpowers, another pop novel about superheroes, à la Soon I Will Be Invincible. In this case, five young people suddenly gain powers (in early 2001) and have to decide what to do with them. It was three-fourths a really entertaining speculative novel, and then in the final quarter, Sept. 11 rolls around, and instead of, you know, doing anything, the heroes basically all curl up into little balls of dysfunctional angst. The super-strong one kills a Muslim civilian in anger, the psychic one goes nearly catatonic and winds up institutionalized, the flying one flies around crying for her mother who died in the attack — it's almost impossibly maudlin and unfulfilling. And it wallows, and wallows, and wallows. I came out of it completely baffled about what the point was. I was thinking of reviewing it, but I may just give it a pass. It's already going to be a crowded week.

We're gonna see fireworks (fireworks!) on the fourtha July

rollick@livejournal.com — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:43:38 GMT

On Friday the 3rd, I was bound and determined to see some fireworks, even if I had to go it alone. Which I did; Cass said going downtown seemed like "a lot of trouble to go to for something I've already seen." So I hung out in the office until around 7, then took a backback full of food and books and laptop, plus the lawn chair I'd hauled all the way downtown, and tried to take a bus out to the museum campus, where the Adler Planetarium sticks waaaay out into Lake Michigan and provides a perfect side-on view of Navy Pier and Grant Park, where the fireworks go up from. There's a bus that goes RIGHT THERE, all the way out to the end of the promonotory. Easy, right?

Nope. Mass-teria. The police had shut down Michigan and State streets — two major north-south arteries that take most of the bus traffic — and all the buses were being re-routed, largely by having confused, irritated CTA personnel at every bus stop, yelling to the bus drivers "There's a detour! You can't go down Michigan!" When I first got on the bus, there was so much chaos at the bus stop that I asked the bus driver "Are you still going to the museum campus?" He said "I don't know. I guess I'll find out when we get there."

Traffic was terrible, but worse was the way no one seemed to know what was going on. The people on the bus, who were mostly going downtown to Taste Of Chicago, were surprisingly patient and non-screamy about the fact that the bus they'd boarded was taking them blocks away from where it normally went and where they wanted to go, but a lady next to me started trying to get me involved in bitching about the CTA and how badly everything was run and how terrible everything was. I essentially said "They're doing the best they can with a confusing situation that keeps changing," and I pointedly went back to reading my book.

It took more than an hour to make a 20-minute trip, and the bus driver ended up pretty frazzled, especially when none of those CTA bus-stop minders could answer any of his questions about where he was supposed to go and whether the museum campus was accessible, and one of them started screaming at him for stopping at the bus stop. He kept saying "They told me to honor all stops" and asking how he was supposed to know which stops to use, and she just kept yelling about how this wasn't his stop. He started addressing random loud comments to no one in particular about "These managers, they all stupid," and generally talking to himself.

When we got down to the museums, the cops were letting buses through into places cordoned off from cars, so we were able to bypass traffic and get to the edge of the promonotory, but the place itself was cordoned off; he said, philosophically, "Well, I think this is about as close as we're gonna get." So we all thanked him for his patience and tenaciousness, and got off. And I walked all the way out to the Adler.

The promonotory is a great place for the fireworks, probably BECAUSE it's increasingly hard to get to as the fireworks get closer; there's a parking lot out there (though it was full by the time I arrived), and some people had clearly taken advantage: There were a number of large groups with their own tables, chairs, grills, and 20-person encampments, happily grilling away. But it was much less crowded than Grant Park, and I could have showed up with a 20-person group of my own and still had no problem finding space for them out on the point. So I found a nice spot, set down my chair, and started reading.

Half an hour later, it became clear that I'd seriously miscalculated. It had been a hot day and was supposed to be a warm night; there had been predictions of thunderstorms, so I was wearing my lightest, breathiest shorts and short-sleeved shirts, the ones that dry in minutes if soaked in the inevitable "Tasha is at a public outdoor event" rain.

Everyone around me was wearing sweaters, winter jackets, and long pants, and they were huddled up against each other under blankets, complaining about how cold it was.

So yeah, I nearly froze, and by the time the fireworks started going off two hours later, I could no longer use my laptop because my fingers were too numb to type. It wasn't so much that it was a cold night, but there was a strong wind coming right off the lake into our faces, and it was like standing in front of an industrial air conditioner.

Still, the fireworks were awesome.

However, people are so profoundly dumb. Things are blowing up! Ooo! Aaah! Ohhhh! And everyone was happy and quiet for 20 minutes, except for little pleasure noises and one extremely loud, attention-mongering woman shouting "Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!" every few seconds. And then as soon as they were over, I got up and headed for warmth and passed two different conversations where people were bitching about how LAST year the fireworks had been SO much better, and this year they were BARELY fireworks at all and why did they even BOTHER, omigod. Also, predictably, the parking lot was completely jammed up, with people leaning angrily on their horns as though that would make the hundreds of people in their way magically evaporate. Pft.

I'd invited Chris to come down and join me for some hanging out and outdoor gaming, but he went to dinner with friends and didn't start trying to get downtown until 8, at which point Lake Shore Drive north was closed off and the rest of the city was a parking lot, so he parked by his workplace and we found each other after the fireworks and wandered around downtown in the city, where (literally, according to news reports) one million people were trying to get home. A general holiday attitude naturally prevailed, with kids and dogs playing everywhere. We sat down on a hill around 9th and Michigan and just talked and watched the humanity-stream flow for a while. When we finally tried to leave, it felt like Escape From New York with far fewer guns — people and blockades and cars everywhere, and the whole place seething with hyper energy. We couldn't get to his car because it was right by the place where one teenager shot four others downtown, and several streets were blocked off. We passed right by one of the crime scenes, where half a dozen cops were laying down numbered markers on the street, and we had to walk in a big loop to get around a dozen police cars and vans and a fire truck. We weren't really on our way until close to midnight, at which point I was exhausted and vibrating from all the crowd energy.

But I'd do it all over again in an instant. Except this time with better clothes and a blanket.

Friday fill-in-the-blank

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:38:41 GMT

I would really like to get rid of _______________.

So many things I haven't said

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:17:08 GMT

No, Nigerian scammers have not assassinated me. (Or responded to my response to them, as penned by thefirethorn.) I've just been busy. Oddly, I have no plans for this weekend — it's particularly weird since next weekend is booked solid. I'm doing my usual wibbling between "throw together big social plans" and "blow off everyone and get caught up on stuff." I spent the morning eyeing projects I could tackle, from the picture frame I bought weeks ago that still has no pictures in it to the front garden, which needs to be weeded and generally set in order. We'll see.

Meanwhile, it's catch-up time.

So did any of you actually go see The Happening? It's tanked at the box office at this point, but its first weekend was strong enough that it's made back production costs, and DVD sales will no doubt help, so Shyamalan will live to make another movie. I'm still boggling, though, at the idea of him making a live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender. ALL of his movies, even the ones I like, have the same slow, portentious, airless, hushed tone. How is he going to handle lively, funny, character-rich action?

That aside, I thought The Happening was an almost impossibly terrible movie. Bad performances, clumsy writing, and eye-rolling ridiculous situations all completely got in the way of a pulpy but potentially interesting story. It felt more like the outline of a movie than like a movie. Virtually the entire Chicago branch of the A.V. Club went to the critics' screening together — seven people total — and we all came out tharn, blinking and half-smiling in a puzzled sort of way. Which I think is about the only proper reaction to the film. That or throwing things at the screen.
If you need a cheap and easy laugh, you could do worse than to check out the slideshow of John Galliano's 2009 men's fashion show. I'm used to fashion shows featuring sullen stick-women wearing things that looked like a loom dropped acid and threw up on them, but haute couture menswear at this level of ridiculousness is new for me. Check out the guys with the painted-on angry-eyebrows. Or the ones with scimitars braided into their hair. Or the guy with the giant elephant sewn onto his yellow pants. Or… oh, the whole thing is just one big entertaining laugh-fest. Have fun.
If I get an email from someone I don't know, pointing out for no reason I'm aware of that she's excited over an Obama "siting" over the weekend and that she "cited" him at Six Flags and she's really excited, is it mean to send her back an email saying "I'm not sure why you're telling me this, but you misspelled "sighting" three times in two ways?" I feel like I was mean about it. Then again, I also feel annoyed about it.
Speaking of dumb-ass email, of all the many self-promoting press releases I get, the ones that most make me roll my eyes are the ones proclaiming that so-and-so is "available to discuss" current affairs or possible issues or whatever. My favorite was last year, when a self-proclaimed children's expert sent out a press release offering her services to the media to discuss — on TV, in the newspaper, over the radio, whatever, she wasn't picky — the potential trauma that children might potentially go through if Harry Potter died in the at-the-time-unpublished final Harry Potter book. But second place goes to the one I just recieved, from someone who would like the media to know that he's available to discuss his website's picks for the most patriotic movies of all time. In fact, he's available all weekend. Good to know! I also am available to the media to talk about things I like! But not all weekend, ’cause I got stuff to do.
We're doing short podcast movie reviews now over at The A.V. Club. In this one, Keith and I talk about Wanted, both the movie and the comic it's based on. And today, Nathan Rabin and I hash out Hancock, which Cass and I both really enjoyed, though critical opinion is heavily against us. More to come.

Son of return of Friday Fill In The Blank

rollick@livejournal.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:47:24 GMT

I am currently completely content with my ___________________________.

WALL•E director

rollick@livejournal.com — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:55:30 GMT

My interview with Andrew Stanton, the director of WALL•E and the co-director of A Bug's Life and Finding Nemo, is online. He was an interesting dude: friendly, funny, and to the point, in a way I appreciate after interviewing so many easily distractable ramblers. At the same time, there were points where I really felt like he was toeing the party line and not really answering the questions. But I think it reads pretty well.

And yeah, I asked him why WALL•E looks so damn much like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.

That aside, though, it's a super-fun movie. I enjoyed it more than Ratatouille, actually. I'm actually kind of ready to see it again, though I think I'll wait until the end of the year around awards season, and see how well it wears over time.

Harlan, take 3, or I am a dork

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:28:17 GMT

Harlan Ellison just called me to thank me for the interviews and the package I sent him last week that included several copies of the paper his interview appeared in, printouts of those interviews (which he requested), and a copy of the Onion book Our Dumb Century. He waxed rapturous over the interview and how for once he "doesn't come across as a total boob," told me a mildly dirty joke (Punchline: "Is it donkey dick?"), and, um, requested I re-send him the cover letter from the package (which was complimentary and grateful for his time), but that I sign it this time, because "a signature is real" and he wants to keep the letter.

Harlan Ellison wants my autograph.

I quit and win forever.

I also turned into a stammering dork as soon as I picked up the phone (though I count it as a point in my favor that when the phone rang and I picked it up and a voice boomed in my ear "I LOVE YOU AND YES, I WILL HAVE YOUR BABIES," I knew exactly who it was and why he was calling, and was able to respond "You promise that to everybody! I'm 3,000th in line at this point!" and not "What? Huh? Who?" (His response to "You promise that to everybody" was "What can I say, I'm a total slut. But my wife knew that when she married me!")

Nonetheless, I giggled and mumbled so much as we talked that the second I got off the line, my co-workers asked me what the fuck had just happened, and I had to tell them that I'm a dork. When I walked off to try to find a working pen to sign the cover letter with, Genevieve yelled after me "That's it, Tasha! Walk it off!"

I know we're supposed to kill our idols, but I can't stop fumfuhing stupidly around this particular one.

Nigeria wants money or it will kill me

rollick@livejournal.com — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:19:54 GMT

The Nigerians have a new scam! (Really, it's about time.) Check out this email I just got:

SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD.

I felt very sorry and bad for you, that your life is going to end like this if you don't comply, i was paid to eliminate you and I have to do it within 10 days.

Someone you call your friend wants you dead by all means, and the person have spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told us that he wants you dead and he provided us your names, photograph and other necessary information we needed about you. If you are in doubt with this I will send you your name and where you are residing in my next mail.

Meanwhile, I have sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation, but I ordered them to stop for a while and not to strike immediately because I just felt something good and sympathetic about you. I decided to contact you first and know why somebody will want you dead by all means. Right now my men are monitoring you, their eyes are on you, and even the place you think is safer for you to hide might not be.

Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? It is up to you. Get back to me now if you are ready to enter deal with me, I mean life trade, who knows, and I might just spear your life, $8,000 is all you need to spend. You will first of all pay $3,000 then I will send the tape of the person that want you dead to you and when the tape gets to you, you will pay the remaining $5,000. If you are not ready for my help, then I will have no choice but to carry on the assignment after all I have already being paid before now.

Warning: do not think of contacting the police or even tell anyone because I will extend it to any member of your family since you are aware that somebody want you dead, and the person knows some members of your family as well.

For your own good I will advise you not to go out once is 7pm until I make out time to see you and give you the tape of my discussion with the person who want you dead then you can use it to take any legal action. Good luck as I await your reply to this e-mail contact: [email address]

Mr. Celestine Chuks

Any bets on whether fear will work better as a motivator than greed? Are stupid people around the country even now scraping up thousands of dollars because they've been watching the trailer for Wanted and don't want to be on the other end of a spinning, multi-stage, elaborately carved rocket-bullet?

Two buckets of cockporn, please

rollick@livejournal.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:47:51 GMT

Courtesy of anne_jumps, it's hours of depressing, hilarious entertainment over at Not Always Right, a compendium of stupid-customer stories:

Me: “411 Information.”

Customer: “Wait a minute…”

*papers rustling around*

Customer: “I thought I had that here…”

*long pause, more rustling*

Customer: “Just a sec…”

*several seconds of silence*

Customer: “Never mind, you sound stupid.” *hangs up*

Or perhaps instead…

Me: “Hello, ma’am. How may I help you?”

Woman: “Oh, when is your baby due?”

Me: “I’m not pregnant, ma’am, just fat.”

Woman: “That’s very rude, you know. Pretending to be pregnant just so people can be nice to you!”

Me: [*gritting teeth*] “I am not pretending anything, ma’am, I promise you. Now, how may I help you?”

Woman: “No! You are a liar, and I am going somewhere where non-lying people can help me!”

Me: “Thank you ma’am, and have a nice day.”

Woman: “LIAR!”

Also, he makes awesome waffles on Sunday mornings

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:40:26 GMT

Interviewing Finding Nemo and WALL•E director Andrew Stanton in half an hour or so, and I'm still doing research. For instance, checking his Wikipedia page. Where I found this:

He has a son named Ben, and a daughter named Audrey who is the coolest daughter ever who helps him with his movies , he lives in Mill Valley in a big house.

Hm. Wonder who wrote THIS bio page? :)

Allergies, interviews, and trailers, oh my

rollick@livejournal.com — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:25:19 GMT

Three random things:

Something I'm allergic to is clearly in bloom right now. (I suspect it's cottonwood fluff.) I haven't had any allergy problems all year, and now suddenly my mouth keeps swelling up and itching so much that it hurts to swallow. I've resorted to chewing a lot of gum, which helps, but is annoying because I don't actually like gum. But then, I don't like my eyes swelling up, or that sensation that the inside of my mouth is composed of swollen raw meat. Stupid allergies.
I really need to stop doing these epic interviews. As nice as it was to spend an hour on the phone with Cory Doctorow and ninety minutes talking to Harlan Ellison and roughly 70 interviewing Tarsem, and as happy as I am with all those interviews, editing a 12,000-word interview is a major undertaking that eats up all kinds of time I don't have, and is just exhausting. I need to stick to short pieces for a while, until I get my wind back and get caught up on other projects.
Publicists keep sending me YouTube clips for BOOKS they want me to review, and referring to them as "book trailers." (And semi-demanding we embed the trailer in whatever coverage we give the book, which irks me mightily.) I've never watched one of these, just as I never watch the YouTube clips publicists send me for albums or shows or DVDs or whatever, because life is short and I have work to do. But for some reason, the "book trailers" annoy me most. It smacks of trying to wedge New Media into everything regardless of the appropriateness or applicability, and it just seems like yet another way for unsolicited publicist demands to eat up my vanishing time. No, we will not include your ad on our review. That isn't how it works, New Media or no. Shoo.

Just a thought

rollick@livejournal.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:32:42 GMT

New life goal: Put Cory Doctorow and Harlan Ellison in a room together. Throw out a topic. Find a comfy chair, sit back and watch. Break for food eight hours later. Repeat as necessary.

It wouldn't necessarily be pretty — they've apparently clashed on at least one con panel in the past, and damn, I wish I'd been there to see that — but they're both extremely smart, talkative, expressive people who are dedicated to their respective causes. And they also seem to have pretty much exact opposite viewpoints on technology, and where the world is going.

Having talked to them both at length in the past week, I'm pretty sure that if we found the right topic and got them going, and found a way to harness the resultant energy created by the passion of the discussion, we'd have the closest thing to a perpetual-motion machine that we have yet.