So, Just a Device to Suck 3 Minutes From My Life, Then?

You know what, Cash Only ATM? If you aren’t up to dispensing cash right now, maybe just say you are out of order. Don’t take my card, let me type in my pin, choose an account and amount, and then sit there, thoughtfully whirring away for 30 seconds, only to declare that "This ATM is unable to dispense cash at this time." IS IT? That is it’s ONLY JOB. It is a Cash ONLY ATM.

Jesus.

Still Literate

I read Man Walks Into a Room.

Cliff Game

Rota is going to let you in on our favorite game in the whole world. The Cliff Game. Also known as Marry, Kill, Screw. It’s a variation on Death is Not An Option. You select three people. They can be characters from movies, books, TV, etc. They can be actors. They can be people you know. You can point to three people on the street. They can be dead or alive, and you can even select people of certain eras (i.e., Star Wars-era Harrison Ford v. Air Force One Harrison v. Firewall Harrison, or whatever). They should be of the same gender, as a general matter. It’s also nice to go with a theme.

So you name three people, and everyone has to say who they would have sex with (one time), who they would live platonically with forever (so you can’t even sleep with them, you live in a house together), and who they would chuck over a cliff. If you’ve chosen three different people, it’s interesting to see what different people do. It’s also fun to choose three awful gross people or three attractive and awesome people and force your friends to make terrible, heart- (or gut-) wrenching choices.

To demonstrate, Ro and I played the game via email. And I am posting the results.

THE CLIFF GAME

Ro: Young Turks Edition: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger. Fight!

Ta: Sleep with Jake, live with Heath, kill Tobey.  Really I would probably sleep with Heath but I don’t really want to live with Jake, so.

Hee, Project Runway edition (I am so sorry): Santino, Andre, and…Daniel.

Ro: First of all, which Daniel?

I would have killed Jake, slept with Tobey and lived with Heath. Here’s why: I am, unexpectedly, irrationally, attached to Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams’s adorable couplehood and tiny baby. So much so that I’m not willing to pretend sleep with him in a game. And I just plain old don’t like Jake Gyllenhaal. I don’t know why.

Ta: Sorry, crazy Daniel that was kicked off early. Of COURSE.

Ro: Oh, Daniel Franco, who isn’t at all gay, why would you think that? Kiss kiss!

I would (shudder) sleep with Daniel Franco, (shudder) live with Andre, and push Santino off a cliff. What would you do?

More Project Runway: Nick, Guy With Stick Up Ass (Emmett??), and Raymundo. Raymundo’s sort of a gimme, I know.

Ta: I hate your new terrible PR cliff game. It’s worse than mine! I would do the same thing you would have done with the other three, shuddering all the while, of course.

Ugh, ok, sleep with Emmett "I design menswear, OK," live with Nick (as long as I can punch his face every day) and KILL Raymundo. Though, Raymundo might have been entertaining as a housemate, for a while.

Ro: Raymundo’s voice would have driven me off a cliff within 20 minutes. I would do the same thing as you did. I can’t get the image of Emmett in that pink skater costume wearing that lame hat trying to look dignified instead of like a big douche in a skater outfit. So yeah, ugh.

It’s your turn, lame-o.

Ta: Hee, Project Runway non-current-contestants: Michael Kors, Tim Gunn, Jay.

Ro: You know, these Project Runway ones are hard because everyone seems gay.

I think I’ll sleep with Tim Gunn, live with Jay, and kill Kors. Kill Kors is the name of my thrash metal band. I can’t stand the dripping disdain in Michael Kors’s voice every time he speaks.

You answer, too! And another one: Oscar Nominees: Joaquin Phoenix (boy, there are a lot of vowels in that), Terrence Howard, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Ta: I want to live with Tim Gunn so so bad. Bad enough that I am considering sleeping with Kors or Jay. Hrm…Yeah. Yeah, I am gonna sleep with Jay (EWEWEWEWEWEW), kill Kors, and live with Tim Gunn. It was worth it, I tells ya.

Sleep with Joaquin, live with Philip Seymour Hoffman, kill Terrence.

Hee! actors playing superheroes in new/upcoming movies: Christian Bale, Brandon Ress, and Nic Cage (he’s playing Ghostrider, right?).

Ro: I would do the same, on the Oscar people.

I think you mean Brandon Routh – Superman? I would kill Cage, sleep with Routh, and live with Bale. Those two are a close call, but I think Bale’s English accent would please me.

Ta: I did mean that! I was too lazy to look it up.

I would do the same!

END SCENE

The Shame

Gosh, am I TIRED.

I’ve developed a really bad habit on the weekends of not sleeping in, even if I’ve been up late. I think because weekend time, free time, is presssscious. And I feel like I shouldn’t be sleeping through it. Result? I am more tired after the weekend than I was before it.

Last night, some of us got together and had a Thanksgiving in February. It went off really well, hitch-less, everything ready to eat at the same time, and delicious. Unfortunately, I decided to eat about twice as much food as could actually fit in my body. Then I went and laid down on C’s living room floor and watched the 8 minutes of Grey’s Anatomy that my TiVo inexplicably refused to record on Sunday. I was in pain, people. But I got through it.

Unfortunately, the very second I was a bit more human, I went for the chocolate pecan pie. That was a near-fatal error. Everything hurt, I could barely stand up. After helping clean a little, I headed home. I was feeling alright for a while, but when I got ready for bed, I developed what felt like malaria. I felt feverish, nauseous, and generally like I just wanted to end it all. I called S, who advised me to lie on my side in the fetal position. That actually worked.

I thought I might have contracted something, but after it passed it became clear that no, I had just eaten WAY too much. How shameful.

The only other time I have felt remotely that ill was once in college. Ro and I and our other roommates went to a "Brew Dinner," a 4 (or 5?) course meal complete with a pint of beer for each course. And these were big courses. And the last course was cheesecake crepes. Yeah. We got back to our dorm and all just went to our rooms, laid on our beds, and moaned. It was bad.

Now that I’ve disgusted you all, I’ll get back to work.

And Again

Another book is up, as is my 2005 year in review.

New books up

I posted for A Moveable Feast and Number9Dream.

ANTM!

Rota loves America’s Next Top Model. But I’m particularly excited about this next "cycle," which starts March 8. Here’s why:

Name: Danielle
Occupation: Babysitter
Age: 20
Hometown: Little Rock, Ark.

BABYSITTER! She’s 20 years old!

Then again, maybe she’s a really important babysitter. Like maybe she’s the president of The Baby-Sitters Club. And she runs the meetings from 5:30 to 6:00 at Kristy’s house on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Maybe I remember too much about the BSC. For example, I know that Rachel Leigh Cook was in the HBO series The Baby-Sitters Club. I know that Dawn had shameful diabetes, and that Claudia always wore long, dramatic earrings and had a grandmother she called Mimi. Let’s see – Mary-Anne and Dawn’s parents got married. Dawn’s house had a secret passageway. Mary-Anne dated Logan. Kristy dated that boy – Bart? – who played baseball. Ooh, and one time Dawn was babysitting this family from Australia who turned out to be racists. Okay, I’ll stop now.

I DO love her

Ro has revealed my totally not-secret, not-shameful shame: I love Kate Beckinsdale. Honestly, I don’t know why. I think it’s because she is pretty. Doesn’t take much, I guess. Pretty!

I don’t love her nearly so much as Rachel McAdams, my straight-girl-crush girlfriend. She’s pretty, too! And FUNNY. You know?

Speaking of pretty, I wore the legwarmers Ro made me yesterday. They shielded my legs from the cold most admirably. Plus, adorable! It helped the adorable that I was wearing them with a skirt that had the legwarmer colors in it. So I may have not have been fashionable, but at least I didn’t clash.

Ro bought Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (POP:SOT) (also, hee!) and has been playing it for her and my amusement. It’s really a lovely game. I love video games, and I have no trouble suspending my disbelief when it comes to them. You mean picking up that heart of the ground that fell out of that guy I killed will give me more…hearts? Ok, sold. Magic bar, rupees, potions, whatever, fine. This glove I found lets me move bigger rocks? Of course it does. I can’t jump up and hoist myself onto that ledge that only comes up to my eyeballs? No, why would I be able to do that.

Ok, that last one does bug. Because come ON. In real life, even I could pull myself up on that and I have the upper arm strength of a puppy. You’re telling me that this bounty hunter chick in her super suit can’t throw a leg up? Honestly.

So one thing that is extra nice about POP is, despite the sand-zombies and magic dagger that can rewind time, the realism. Our friend the Prince can hoist himself onto any ledge if he can reach it by jumping up. You can climb almost anything and go almost anywhere in this game. And to refill life, you drink water! Water! It’s genius.

The look of the game is very fluid as well, and while not perfect, the camera is far less annoying than in many games these days. You have the ability to move the camera, something which designers have been leaving out in recent titles. And they totally stole the creepy sounds soundtrack from the terrifying Eternal Darkness. To me, actually, the whole engine looks like an updated version of the ED engine. Man, I wish they would make a sequel to that game.

I like the game a lot. That is my rating.

Screed

Having watched one hour and twelve minutes of Van Helsing, I feel I am qualified to write numerous insulting things about the entire production. Here goes!

1. Kate Beckinsale, Ta may love you, but I don’t get it, and also your accent. Stop, right now. Oh, you did stop, inexplicably, for this entire scene. Wait, there goes the "accent" again. Also, as far as I can tell you are trying to do "love child of Count Dracula and Count Chocula." It’s not working.

2. I know this is not even in the top 400 problems with this movie, but I can’t believe that a Romanian princess is wandering around in leather pants at the turn of the century. She would be stoned for that, I’m pretty sure. Now that is a movie I would watch.

3. Is Hugh Jackman getting typecast as misfit warrior for good who has amnesia obscuring a dark past?

4. The lady vampires. Vampiresses? Vampresses? Anyway, they were kind of awesome, in the sense that if the movie had been called "Dracula, Polygamist" and was all about being one of the 3-4 wives of the Count, I would be telling everyone I know to watch it. The Draculas were melodramatic and hilarious. I loved them. They were also ridiculous, of course, and not even a little bit scary or threatening, but I was happy to see them when they showed up on screen in belly-dancer outfits, bemoaning their childless states.

5. I couldn’t understand what Kate Beckinsale’s brother’s name was. Falcon? Belkin? Berkin? I hope it wasn’t Berkin.

6. The hair! Everyone’s hair! Hugh Jackman’s hair was magnificent. It had volume and shine, it seemed soft and manageable. I bet the hair and makeup people didn’t know what to do with Kate Beckinsale’s  hair, because if the male lead has longer hair than the female lead Hollywood would fall into the ocean. So they just made her hair like Rapunzel. Plus, it was all in individual curls. Man, Dracula’s hair was also great. Spiky, gelled. He had a surprisingly modern haircut for a supernatural creature born many hundred years ago.

7. I’m pretty sure at one point I saw Jackman check his watch, roll his eyes, and finish the scene.

8. One thing that was genuinely funny is when the monk (actually just a friar, as he points out), sleeps with some town trollop. Although, again, I’m pretty sure people got stoned for that. Both of them.

9. Oh, how Kate Beckinsale’s character longs to see the sea! Oh, the sea! She bets it’s beautiful, but she doesn’t know because she hasn’t see the SEA. THE SEA, which she wants to see. If only she could go to the SEA! The longing! The sea!

10. There are another 54 minutes. I think this is the thing I hate most about Van Helsing. I mean, should I finish it? If it were only 20 minutes, I would. But there’s another HOUR of this travesty. On the other hand, maybe it all comes together and the movie turns out great. Hee!

It’s all adrenaline…Adrenaline and HEART!

Perhaps this is not the ideal post to be the inaugural tagged with "judging" post.

I was watching the figuring skating last night while I got read for bed. It was the pairs long program, and before each pair went on, they did a little human interest story about them. This year, I have to say, NBC is doing a really nice job with the tales of bittersweet victories and triumphs over adversity and whatnot. So the Russians are about to go on, and NBC tells us the harrowing tale of the time this pair was in the US in 2004 to skate in the World Championships but then there was a TERRIBLE ACCIDENT. They showed the guy skater lifting the girl and then . . . dropping her. HARD. On her head. And she slid motionless across the ice. The fall was so ugly that as they showed it, I heard a loud "Ohhhhh!" from across the street, the sound of 3 or 4 guys watching a particularly rough hit during a football game or something. That part was actually kind of funny, because that means there were a bunch of dudes across the street watching pairs figure skating at 11pm last night.

Anyway, it was bad. And then we learned about how the guy lost his confidence and it took forever for him to regain it and here they are about to totally win Another Gold Medal because they are the Russians and that is what they do.

I feel like that story really set the stage for the Chinese pair that followed them.  This Chinese pair had planned to attempt some crazy kind of throw never before attempted in comeptition, and they only had a 40-50% success rate during practice. I can’t remember the name of the throw, as it was immediately replaced by the Pamchenko Twist in my head. Anyway. It was the first throw in their program, and as they went to do it, I felt like it was not going to go well. And I was right. The girl didn’t make her final rotation, and she landed in a semi-split on her knee.

It was so sad, and scary, but then she totally shook it off! And they finished their program, AND got enough points to win the silver. Damn, you know? I would have been all, no, thanks, I’m done, this is WAY too stressful and now my knee hurts. I’m just going to sit this one out. Can someone get me some hot chocolate maybe? And ice, some ice? Thanks.

I will never be an Olympic athlete.

The announcer lady was suitably awed. She just kept saying that it was amazing, and how the skater must not be able to feel anything. She thought it must just be pure adrenaline at that point. "Adrenaline . . . and heart."

That announcer is lame.