For someone who has literally nothing to do the vast majority of the time, I sure do seem to stay crazy busy. It feels like this is the first moment I’ve had to breathe in half a year. That said, let’s make some Oscar picks, shall we?
Note: Categories are presented in no particular order, and picks are being made regardless of whether or not I’ve see all the films in a given category.
Best Actor:
Right away I’m torn for several reasons.
—George Clooney probably gave the best performance in Up in the Air, but he’s won so much already that it’s almost boring to see him get it.
—I like Jeff Bridges, but I think Crazy Heart is overhyped and not that great of a movie.
—Morgan Freeman seems like the go-to guy since you know he did a good job, and likely has the fewest years of eligibility (aka life) left in him.
—I don’t like Colin Firth, and furthermore can’t in good conscience select someone whose resume includes Love Actually, What a Girl Wants and the Bridget Jones series.
—Jeremy Renner did an ok job in Hurt Locker, but it’s just not the kind of character I like to see win.
Pick: Morgan Freeman. Eh, why not? Besides, he might smite us if we don’t give it to him.
So I’ve been hearing a lot of feedback about my hair lately. As is usually the case when dealing with opinions, this feedback falls into one of three categories: negative, positive, and neutral. The only downside when dealing with hair is that the negative feedback tends to be a lot more descriptive and specific than the positive or neutral; people who like your hair typically choose comments such as “I like your hair” and leave it at that. Folks in the neutral camp might go with “your hair looks ok” or something along those lines. But the negative group — rather than simply state “I don’t like your hair” or “your hair is bad” — feel the need to describe every single thing they dislike about it (“I hate the way you part your hair” “I can’t believe you’re growing it out, it looks awful” “it’s so gross and wispy looking” “you look Amish” etc.), then repeat their complaints in as many different ways and as often as possible. It would be nice if this worked both ways, and that if someone really liked your hair, instead of limiting themselves to the one-time “I dig your hair” they’d yell “OH MY GOD, YOUR HAIR IS SO AWESOME! I love the way it sticks up in the back and I wish I could follow you around and stare at it all day, I love it so” every single time they saw you. But they can’t, because A) that’s creepy and B) I doubt that anyone likes someone’s haircut enough to actually feel those emotions about hair…and really one hair compliment per person is plenty.
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Daylight Savings Time — I love the one night a year it buys me an extra hour to sleep, and therefore an extra hour to stay out the night before — but I pretty much hate it the rest of the year. For the unaware, Daylight Savings Time (DST) is the practice where a bunch of now-deceased dudes mess with the clock a few months out of the year just so they can screw with my sleep schedule. I always assumed that DST was put in place so that farmers could have more light to farm by (or whatever it is farmers do at 4am when the rest of us are just getting home for the night), but a brief skim of DST’s wikipedia page shows that the practice of DST — though proposed by various people over the years — was actually put into place by a bunch of Eurotrash A-holes who were trying to conserve coal during World War I so they’d have more energy to bomb the hell out of America.
When I originally conceived this post, it began as an idea to rant about how finally, for the first time in a decade, the sitcom was returning to its full glory. But just as I was set to compose a piece complaining about the comedic drought of the early 2000s (basically how every show since Seinfeld, Frasier, Arrested Development, etc. went off the air, we’ve been subjected to nothing but lackluster, boring, predictable situation-comedies), it struck me that this wasn’t really an accurate thesis statement. The truth is, with shows like Scrubs, Family Guy, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office (British and American versions), and others I can’t presently recall; we’ve actually had several pretty decent offerings since the sitcom’s modern Golden Age of the late 90s. So instead of composing a long and contrived rant about how Hollywood forgot how to make us laugh, and laziness runs rampant throughout the writers’ guilds, I’ve decided to take the opposite position and write out an informal review of current comedic offerings and whether or not they’re worth your hard-earned 22 minutes of weekly attention. As usual, you’re welcome.
Part of my persona as a completely pretentious A-hole and general connoisseur of all things snobby is being really douchey about peoples’ spelling and grammar. Yes, I’m That Guy…you know that guy that everybody hates for calling people out in public for any of the following:
*Using the “words” irregardless or nother (as in “a whole nother”), the phrase “I could care less” (when you mean you couldn’t care less), etc.
*The differences between it’s/its, they’re/their/there, to/too/two, who’s/whose, your/you’re, et al.
*TyPiNG lIkE tHiS oR aNy VaRiAtIoN tHeReOf
*General apostrophe usage
There are countless more examples, but you get the idea. read more…
Somewhere betwixt the early 20th century and the late 20th century, it became very vogue for “discerning artistic consumers” (read: pretentious A-holes) to ridicule successful artists for “selling out”. The idea being that any artist able to turn a profit in their medium (music, acting, writing, painting, etc.), had clearly abandoned their ideals and convictions in order to do so. After they sold out, they became puppets of The Man, and as such, were incapable of producing anything genuine and spectacular anymore, which made them less cool in the eyes of the “in the know” consumers — and by association served as a way for these same D-bags to judge the people who still supported said artist. These hip, trendy consumers have clearly never had to pay rent before — because how else could they possibly justify hating on people who have spent years struggling to eke out a living in the arts unless they’d never had any bills or financial responsibilities of their own; and as a result, were totally oblivious to the fact that artists have to support themselves and their families on something other than dreams and smiles.
I have a scientific theory. It’s scientific in the sense that I once took a science class, and it’s a theory in the sense that it’s not based on any sort of fact or experience. Kind of like Scientology.
The theory is that everyone in life has thirteen people that they could potentially fall in love with (this theory is exclusive to romantic love, we’re not talking about the love that mothers have for their children or the unrequited love I have for the Cincinnati Begnals). This might sound contradictory coming from someone who’s a self-proclaimed “hopeless romantic”, so let me break it down for you:
Out of the (roughly) six billion people in the world, let’s say about half of them are male, half of them are female, and two of them are Jamie Lee Curtis and Lady Gaga (it’s a hermaphrodite joke. If you don’t know that word, please don’t google it). So depending on your preference, you have either three billion women or three billion men to choose from.
For those of you who don’t follow my twitter (huge faux pas on your part, by the way), you probably don’t know that my computer has been suffering through a pretty serious…something…the past week or so. In Mac’s defense, this is the first major issue it’s had in almost three years of use, and thanks to the beauty of the AppleCare program, I can send it in to be fixed for free. However, a questionably-functioning computer means fewer blogs than I prefer to put up. And it’ll likely be another week or so before I get my MacbookPro back and in blogging condition. So as a thanks to the four of you who read this thing, here’s a bonus post to tide you over while I send it off, and I’ll see you in a week-ish.
I know a lot of you are interested in being as cool as I am. Clearly this is the sort of thing that takes years — if not decades — to master, but an easy way to get started is by improving your brocabulary. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, your brocabulary is the section of your vocabulary that you use to communicate with and build your friend base. Mostly it consists of putting the prefix “bro” on top of normal words you’d use. Here’s a list of a few of my favorites, along with their definitions, but feel free to come up with your own and submit them for my scrutiny here. Who knows, if you’re creative and lucky enough, you may just find yourself in the Bro Hall of Fame (aka any bathroom in any frat house in America and parts of Mexico/Canada).
Since I was about eight years old, I’ve had this exchange at least once with 90% of the people I’ve ever met:
Person Who Isn’t Very Good with Small Talk: Say Dustin, you’re awfully skinny, aren’t you?
Dustin: Yes. And thank you for pointing it out, I was unaware.
PWIVGwST: You need to eat more! Put some meat on those bones!
Dustin: I actually eat quite a lot already — more than most anybody else I know, actually.*
PWIVGwST: Wow, you must have a really fast metabolism.
Dustin: Yes, that’s the likely explanation. Excellent deductive reasoning, that.
PWIVGwST: Well enjoy it while you can, because once you’re <insert upcoming age and/or milestone here> that’ll all stop. I used to be skinny like that when I was your age, too.
And this is the part where I — being fairly competent with small talk — don’t point out that the person I’m talking with is usually decently overweight, and their implication is that once they were as skinny as I am, but due to circumstances beyond their control, they couldn’t stop eating (or start exercising) once their metabolism crapped out, and it’s only a matter of time before I turn into a fat glob of a human like them.
read more…
