Not A Dollarshort

Talking Dogs

I'm very happy to break my weblogging silence by posting the quintessential top of blogdex pet movie. In honor of my mom's 47th birthday today, I post the best video ever sent via email to me by my mom:

Who says dogs can't speak?

How old is Kurt Loder?

A couple weeks ago, madness ensued as the staff of Six Apart tried to guess Kurt Loder's age. The topic of Kurt Loder came up when I asked a certain member of the team whether he had read Loder's book, Bat Chain Puller: Rock & Roll in the Age of Celebrity, since it apparently had a section devoted to the paradox that is Prince¹.

Guesses ranged from mid-forties to early fifties. After consulting IMDB we found out that Kurt Loder was in fact 60 years old! (well, actually 59, but 60 sounds better). Completely flabbergasted, I felt that it was my noble calling to repeatedly say "Kurt Loder is 60 years old!" to everyone who came into the office that day.

In college, I took a modern literary theory in which we studied the Russian Formalist, Viktor Shklovsky and defamiliarization. In a nutshell, defamiliarization is the act of renewing our awareness and perception of things that have become mundane. So, for example, the way we live, we will see a tree and that triggers our minds to recognize the tree, but we never truly see the tree. Defamiliarization would illuminate that tree in some novel way so that it break the mold of common perception.

Or at least that's what I remember from school.

Anway, that above paragraph is not completely random. Kurt Loder is that tree that we simply see and register as Kurt Loder but never take in account that we're looking at a 60 year-old man on MTV. I've seen Kurt Loder on television hundreds of time, but I'd be hard pressed to describe what he looks like. I know if I saw him in person, I wouldn't know it.

Anyway, if you didn't know it already, Kurt Loder is 60!

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¹ One of the perks of a company growing in size is that internally, we now have two Prince super-fans on staff and this reference may or not refer to Anil. But, yes it is Anil.

Back the Future Kubricks

I've made it clear that I'm a Back to the Future geek. So much so that people send me links to other Back to the Future Shirts -- note the very excellent description: Marty, Marty !!! saute dans la DeLorean et rapporte-moi le back up de la semaine dernière, on a un gros problème de serveur. Quand on vous dit qu’il faut sauvegarder!"

So, I was incredibly excited to see that there were Kubricks manufactured to represent the characters in Back to the Future. Of, course when I saw them in a store in San Francisco, Kid Robot, I had to purchase them (even Jennifer). The Marty looks more like Emilio Estevez than Michael J. Fox, but that is life.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Back to the Future Kubricks.

Now, I know that when I'm go to Japan next month and I just have to pick up the Kubricks from Back to the Future II (just to get Old Biff).

Smooth Muppets

Around Christmas this last year I saw a deck of Muppet-themed playing cards that had a picture of Kermit the Frog wearing a suit and trying to look smoothly into the distance. Immediately I launched into a rant on how I hate it when cartoon characters and puppets are made to look smooth or sinister or studly (think about how Looney Toon characters used to be made to look like gangstas). When I was recounting my hatred of smooth Muppets (and I'm not talking about smooth like those stoned Muppets in the band -- I'm talking about Kermit as pictured below), I just realized that "hate" is a really strong word.

Actually, I remember something that Mister Rogers said in that great Esquire interview:

"Mister Rogers always worries about things like that, because he always worries about children, and when his station wagon stopped in traffic next to a bus stop, he read aloud the advertisement of an airline trying to push its international service. "Hmmm," Mister Rogers said, "that's a strange ad. 'Most people think of us as a great domestic airline. We hate that.' Hmmm. Hate is such a strong word to use so lightly. If they can hate something like that, you wonder how easy it would be for them to hate something more important."

I think "hating" smooth Muppets is the definition of using a word lightly and I should probably just get over it.

Back to the Future Shirt

So I went shopping for some clothes for work (you know, respectable skirts and jackets) and all I got was this "ironic" T-Shirt. But of course, to me it's not ironic at all. In fact, I think it's probably the coolest thing I've bought in years. My love for Back to the Future is that deep.

I have to preface this next portion of my post by apologizing for being such a dork. It's a fine line between BTTF superfan and loser.

Speaking of Back to the Future, I had an incredibly great Secret Santa that bought me the trilogy on DVD. Packed with all sort of extras, the absolutely best feature was one of the deleted scenes from Back to the Future II that answered a burning question that Ben and I have debated many a time. In BTTF II, you may recall that when Biff comes back from giving his younger self the sports almanac he appears to be having a heart attack. While it's understandable that he'd be tired after the time travel, the length that the filmmakers go to to show his pained expressions makes you wonder just what's going on.

A while ago, during a car trip, Ben conjectured that Biff's pains are the result of his future being erased -- that he seems to be in the same sort of state that Marty is in during the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. While I agreed with the idea, I couldn't understand why don't we see Biff becoming transparent? Where's that payoff?

Well, according to the deleted scenes and commentary, Biff does indeed go transparent and then disappears in the extended cut of the scene. According to the filmmakers, the preview audiences didn't understand why he just disappears. And because of this confusion, they cut the scene short.

The deleted scenes included with the first film also explain why there is an extended close-up on George pouring peanut brittle -- another odd sort of scene that never really made sense. If you actually care about this missing scene, I'll venture to guess that you probably already own the special edition of the movie.

Okay, enough of that

I really love my shirt.

Update: If you're interested in getting your own Back to the Future shirt, here's a link.

Point / Counterpoint

The current bane of my existence? Ersatz Andy Rooneys who can't understand that, yes, we may know fundamentally how a story ends but we don't want to hear the details that lead to that point.

I'll admit it, I'm one of the spoiler queens he speaks about. For the three years since The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I've made a determined effort to cover my ears whenever the subject of the books and movies was brought up. When the first movie came out, I had absolutely no interest in reading the books or even seeing the movie. Ben was the rabid Tolkien fan in our family and I was a reluctant participant. However, after seeing the first movie, I became immersed in the world. I made a decision to not read the books because I figured that not knowing what happens would make the films even more enjoyable.

For the past two years, I haven't read articles about the movies, haven't watched the trailers and haven't read the books (I began to read The Two Towers but decided to stop when the plots didn't quite match).

For the most part, when I saw The Return of the King on opening day, I was completely surprised.

Your Own Dot Org

Over at Pet Rock Star, Shannon writes about Your Own Dot Org, a song that Joi asked her to write for and about us for our birthdays this last September.

I first listened to the song in September, on our flight to New York. While I had all the intentions to write about the song once our birthdays had passed, I was a bit reluctant to share the song since -- even though it's about topics that I've written about publicly -- it is still incredibly personal. It was an incredibly great gift and a wonderful song and I didn't just want it to become a joke about the "Ben and Mena."

And, when there are lines like "you're unbelievably adorably cute / benevolent, witty, and brilliant to boot" it's a bit tough to say "hey, here's a song written about us!" without looking like a complete egotist.

Now that Shannon and Joi have written about it, I have to add my comments and say that she did an amazing job. Shannon captured some really great moments and managed to make it funny, not sappy.

My absolutely favorite part of the song, which refers to this dinner:

"even four days alone reveal this is true:
ice cream... is so sad... without you"

Thanks to Shannon and Joi.

Read more about the song here.

Drop Some Bows

A little known fact about me: I have incredibly sharp elbows, elbows so sharp that they'd be considered my superpower. Not the most interesting fact, but a fact nonetheless. So, it was a great pleasure for me to hear Cameron utter the phrase "drop some bows," a variation of "drop dem bows" or "throw dem bows" a staple phrase found in Southern rap. (My, that sounds like a very square phrase uttered by a white girl). When I originally heard the phrase, I pictured that the word "bows" was actually "bose" as in Bose speaker systems -- which, really does make some sense if you're wanting to say that your speakers are kicking. At least, according to Paul Harvey, Bose speakers are kicking.

Anyway, my life it better now that I can drop some bows.

Pop Quiz

Take the meish.org Pop Quiz

"There are sixty album covers - some better known than others, but none intended to be overly obscure - from which the artist and title information has been removed via the magic of the clone tool and some artful blurring."

The question is, can you identify all the albums and provide the missing information.

I'm sad to say that while I do know a good number of these album's artists, I'm at a complete lost for the actual titles of the albums. I don't do details well.

Spellbound

Over the weekend, we finally got the chance to see Spellbound, the documentary that profiles 8 of the 249 finalists in their quest to win the 1999 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee.

The wonderful thing about Spellbound is that while it doesn't gloss over the fact that a good number of these children have the sort of idiosyncratic behavior that destines them to 12 years of being picked last for the kickball team and that many of them are in the danger zone of overachievement, it respects the decision that the parents and children have made to participate in the competition. We aren't forced through an hour and a half of "these kids should be playing outside," but instead are drawn into the world of competitive spelling bees through very human eyes.

I would have been disappointed if Spellbound tried to heavy-handedly convince me that these kids worked too hard. Going in to the movie and not knowing anything about the National Spelling Bee, I could have told you that these kids probably spend too much time studying dictionaries and word lists. I could have, after seeing a couple years of Bee coverage on ESPN, could have also told you that these kids are nerdy. What I wanted, and what Spellbound delivered, was the personal stories of the contestants and their families. Where do these kids come from? What does it take to get to the National Spelling Bee? And, ultimately, why are they doing it?

Some aspects of the film were slightly disappointing. I felt the final win was particularly anti-climatic due to odd editing. And, the filmmakers didn't seem to provide enough material for me to get emotionally invested in the ultimate winner. However, I could see these choices probably were meant to de-emphasize the fact that the movie wasn't just about the "win" or the "winner." These are small nitpicks on a thoroughly enjoyable film.

I do wish their was an epilogue about what the kids were doing today. Since the film takes place in 1999, the children are all now in their late teens, no doubt heading to assorted universities across the United States. Doing some online searching, I found some information about two of my favorite contestants: Angela Arenivar, the contestant whose parents are Mexican immigrants and April DeGideo (do a find for "April DeGideo"), the girl who likens her parents to Edith and Archie Bunker and who bears more than a passing resemblance (in both looks and demeanor) to my sister-in-law Kristin and myself as children.

Overall, a great film that I highly recommend you catch in a theater or on DVD/Video.

Watch the Spellbound trailer