(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
The masks, I mean--not the actual flu:
Swine Flu Mask Fashion
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
04 May 2009
is this catching?
15 April 2009
re: neither irrelevance nor home-feeling
(Comments from LiveJournal)
Nicole: I was thinking today, while I was reading said Metro, that I'm surprised there aren't more instances of T-riders beating up T drivers out of rage for what they read in the Metro while they're on the T. I think the Metro is largely to blame. That headline/picture(s) on the front page today was extreme. Every other week it's "they're cutting service and raising prices!" "no we're not!" "yes they are!" I'm kind of tired of getting all worked up over it for possibly nothing. If they do cut nighttime service in half, I will most likely need to find another job. As it is, it takes me 25% longer to get home at night than it does to get to work in the morning...
I think most people would blame the Metro's tendency to fan the fire before they would blame the T drivers (which is [maybe] why no one has been attacked yet). It's not like the drivers can control their schedule; they can, to a point, so far as efficiency goes, but on the larger scale they have to listen to dispatch. The only time I see anyone get annoyed with the drivers is when the drivers are themselves being rude.
Cutting nighttime service is a mistake on so many levels. I'm not sure how it is on the other lines, but trains on the Newburyport/Rockport line are crowded enough as it is, even later in the evening.
14 April 2009
neither irrelevance nor home-feeling
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
The cover of today's Metro is pretty grim for those of us who use public transportation in the greater Boston area. The T has a $160 million budget deficit, and the proposed remedy is service cuts. Brilliant--because if people can't take the T, the MBTA will certainly earn back that deficit. Oh, yeah. That'll work.
More useless complaints:
The T loses money because it's a slow and antiquated system that can't provide service to as many riders as it should (were it faster and more reliable). They spend all their money on cosmetic [stuff] like the Arlington stop (which still isn't finished, though I see workers there every single bloody day), yet the Green line as a whole is entirely defunct--especially at street level. Trains that are beholden to traffic lights and thrown out of schedule by automobile traffic? ... Miserable. You might as well be in a car at that point, and it shouldn't be surprising that some people choose that route instead.
Ugh. And then ...
Entering North Station from the Garden, there were members of the MBTA security handing out fliers of the "See Something, Say Something" variety. Shiny, colourful fliers. I didn't take one. Past the ticket turnstiles, said shiny fliers are crumpled and strewn down the escalator and patching little sections of the floor in glossy scarlet and white, abandoned by their five-second owners. And all I can think is: How much did those cost?
If you see something, don't say something. That takes too long, and whatever it is you're seeing might disappear while you're flapping your gums. Just pummel the perpetrator about the head with a bag (or, you know, whatever's handy). It's faster, more effective, and you'll eventually attract some sort of official attention if you carry on like that.
P.S. If you're the sort of person to actually take my advice, don't really do any of the aforementioned things. I kid. Well ... insofar as safety goes. If someone is physically attacking you on the T (or anywhere else, for that matter), I think you should feel free to pummel away. Self-defense and all that.
...
I also can't help but be reminded of Lovecraft--because I'm still stuck there. Towards the end of "At the Mountains of Madness", the vague allusion he supplies in describing the shoggoth creature is quite recognisable to anyone who rides the T. A man named Danforth, having glimpsed the oncoming bulk of the creature, falls to pieces and the narrator observes his chanting: "South Station Under--Washington Under--Park Street Under--Kendall--Harvard. ..."
We don't say "Under" anymore, but the stops are still there, though Washington is now Downtown Crossing and Charles/MGH has been added to the list.
Anyway, I think the T is a kind of monster--just not as resilient a one as Lovecraft's shoggoth, which is a shame.
14 March 2009
degree of extreme
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
The cover of the Spring 2009 BU Arts & Sciences reads:
"BU (extreme) South - Geomorphologist David Marchant and his team of students discover Antarctica's secret past"
But, of course, because I'm still stuck at the mountains of madness, "secret past" makes me think of starfish-headed tentacle aliens in a labyrinthine city ...
And then Professor Marchant's Earth Science class, but that was pathetically secondary in my thought process. Yeah, I had a 9 AM class with him in Freshman year, and it was about as stirring as Lovecraft's "Mountains" (unfortunate for a morning class and a morning read, respectively).
Marchant is like my very own Dyer, and because of this little morsel of information regarding his travels, I will now be imagining him in place of my original mental sketch of Professor Dyer (in spite of the fact that Marchant is actually much younger than Dyer is meant to be). Yay!
I've listened to about a half-dozen of these in the past two days. "About," because I downloaded the first six but fell asleep listening to one last night.
My original notion of Russell Brand came from that Andrew Sachs prank phone call business. I listened to the audio of the radio programme long after the fact, and it wasn't so much scandalous to me as it was blown way out of proportion. I heard about the VMA nonsense a bit later, but I didn't really care ... because, well, I don't care about MTV.
But after watching Brand's special from New York City on ComedyCentral, my opinion of him has improved. Sure, he's an eccentric little giraffe (and a manwhore, to boot), and a lot of his routine is specifically grounded in moments of personal embarrassment, but he also has this marvelous ability to slip into beautifully poetic rambles. Very entertaining overall, so I went in search of more--and, indeed, found more.
Then, today I was watching movies on the Instant Queue and picked Penelope, because I remembered that a coworker had suggested it. And who should make a very brief cameo in that film but Russell Brand? I wasn't even paying attention at that point, to be honest (because I tend to web browse all the time); but then I heard that voice, to which I've become quite attuned with the aforementioned radio broadcast .mp3s and falling asleep to it and so on, and my brain went: Russell?! And there he was talking to James McAvoy's character! Very, very brief cameo, but it makes me feel as though my subconsciousness is dragging him around with me.
10 March 2009
"building a henge, are we?"
Local park getting own version of Stonehenge
WUT?
"Its monolithic stones will tower 7 feet above the ground with an additional 5 feet anchored into concrete rings below ground. The circle will be 20 feet across with a stone tablet in the middle."
... Tower? These stones are going to tower at 7 feet?
LOL with me now.
19 November 2008
DiaF Award, 19. November 2008
Boston Herald wins the Die in a Fire Award today.
They're seriously using their front page to blast Denis Leary? Is news that slow, folks? You're really going to use your front page to settle a personal score? Has the Herald become a reactionary rag (but then, maybe it's always been)?
Their initial claim was that Leary called autistic children "stupid and lazy" ... No. What he said was that irresponsible parents are trying to hide their stupid and lazy children (that they never bothered to parent properly) behind convenient labels that might get them a better teacher-student ratio (to undo the damage of the parents' gross negligence). Was Leary's statement brash? Hell, yes. He's Denis "I'm An Asshole" Leary. It would be a herald to the End of Days if the man started being sensitive.
Then, Leary reacted to their claim at his Agganis Arena show.
And the Herald needed to get back at him. On the front page. Because they're apparently staffed by old men who never got over the high school mind-set.
But Leary's not insulting people who genuinely have autism, which anyone at the Herald would know if they'd shut up and listen for a minute. Also, had any of them ever listened to any of his stand-up, they might better understand the spirit in which he says things.
As he'd be the first to say, he's an asshole; but picking on actually autistic children? He's not that much of an asshole.
16 July 2008
from the New York Times: Iced Coffee? No Sweat
Because I know I'm not the only one who ridiculously pours hot coffee over ice in order to have my coveted iced coffee. BEFORE I go telling everybody that the secret to great iced coffee is already in the kitchen, my friend Keller wants me to confess: I didn't know from iced coffee until he showed me the light. It's important to cop to this now, because not a summer goes by that he does not painstakingly remind me, a rabid iced-coffee drinker, that he's the one who introduced me to the wonders of cold-brewed iced coffee. The funny thing is, when the subject came up we were holed up in a summer rental with three friends off the coast of Puerto Rico, on a tiny island not exactly swimming in upmarket coffee houses. Our first morning there I brewed a blend from the local grocery in the coffeepot, laced it with a little half-and-half and sugar, then let it cool. Classy, I thought, carrying the pitcher to the table. ''I'll just take it hot,'' he mumbled, while I blinked in disbelief. Clearly, this boy didn't know any better. A drink has a time and place. Surely he didn't subscribe to drinking hot coffee in summer? ''No, I only drink iced coffee if it's cold-brewed,'' he said. For five days we watched him sullenly sip his hot coffee on a broiling Caribbean island in the dead of summer. We chided him for his pretensions, ridiculed him, tried valiantly to break him, but he patiently waited us out. Once we tried it we would understand, he explained. Like friends disputing a baseball stat in a bar with no access to Google, we had no way to settle the argument. Two weeks later, back in Brooklyn, I saw a sign: ''Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee Served Here.'' Fine, then. I threw down two bucks and took a sip. Though it pains me to admit, the difference was considerable. Without the bitterness produced by hot water, the cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. I dropped my sugar packet -- no need for it. The best brews hardly need cream. It really is the kind of thing a gentleman might spend five days in hot-coffee solitary confinement for. Most days I'm too lazy to hunt down the elusive cold-brewed cup. But recently I discovered an interesting little fact. Cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home. Online, you'll find a wealth of forums arguing for this bean or that, bottled water over tap, the 24-hour versus the 12-hour soak. You can even buy the Toddy cold-brew coffee system for about $30. But you can also bang it out with a Mason jar and a sieve. You just add water to coffee, stir, cover it and leave it out on the counter overnight. A quick two-step filtering the next day (strain the grounds through a sieve, and use a coffee filter to pick up silt), a dilution of the brew one-to-one with water, and you're done. Except for the time it sits on the kitchen counter, the whole process takes about five minutes. I was curious to see how it would taste without all the trappings. The answer is, Fantastic. My friend Carter, something of a cold-brewing savant, turned me onto another homegrown trick: freeze some of the concentrate into cubes. Matched with regular ice cubes, they melt into the same ratio as the final blend. Very fancy. Can't wait to tell Keller. Recipe: Cold-Brewed ICED COFFEE Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours' resting Time: 5 minutes, plus 12 hours' resting 1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best) Milk (optional). 1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours. 2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk. NOTE: To make hot coffee, dilute concentrate one-to-one with water and heat in the microwave.
For the original article:
ICED COFFEE? NO SWEAT
By CINDY PRICE
Published: June 27, 2007
07 February 2008
"We can't stop here--"
I was considering the tagline for the 1971 version of Willard, and I'm thinking it's good that Romney goes by Mitt instead.
"Where your nightmares end... WILLARD begins. [P.S. Vote Romney 2008!]"
Yeah.
...
No.
Does Mitt have a crazy friend named Ben, because that would also be awesome. Ooh! Wait! What was the name of his campaign helper who posed as a policeman?
Darn. His name is Jay.
Oh, well. We'll work with it.
18 January 2007
Tarzan, much?
There are certain notions that I would tend to immediately dismiss as fiction. This was one of them:
'Wild Cambodia jungle-girl' found
A Cambodian girl who disappeared aged eight has been found after reportedly living wild in the jungle for 19 years.
So this girl is 27, has been surviving in the jungle for almost two decades, and speaks no discernible language? I call that a movie plot waiting to happen.
Honestly, it's like The Jungle Book or Tarzan or George of the Jungle. Crazy.
03 October 2006
if we're going to be damned ...
Three school shootings in the span of a week? methinks the U.S. government needs to stop worrying about spreading freedom and democracy, and start worrying about our own damned selves. Clearly there's something wrong with our system. Just LOOK!
But now, on to the movies ...
The Road to Wellville - Based on T. Coraghessan Boyle's best-selling novel satirizing late-19th century health fads. Will and Eleanor Lightbody (Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda), guests at cereal mogul Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's (Anthony Hopkins) health spa, are forced to undergo an array of hilariously absurd medical treatments. Meanwhile, a con artist (John Cusack) and Kellogg's adopted son (Dana Carvey) plot to steal the doctor's coveted corn flake recipe.
My favorite character? Definitely George (Dana Carvey). He's so mindlessly angry with his father (well, not entirely mindless--Dr. Kellogg was overly religious, fanatically asexual, and obsessed with vegetarianism; so there's a reason to the madness one might feel about having such a man for one's father, adopted or otherwise). Throughout the film there are a series of flashbacks to Dr. Kellogg's interaction with his children--George, in particular. And I love the jacket-on-the-hook scene.
George won't hang up his jacket when he enters the house, just drops it on the floor; so, as punishment, Dr. Kellogg has him repeat the action over and over again. Only George won't stop. And he does the action throughout the night, keeping everyone awake by slamming the door and thumping up and down the stairs again and again and again. Finally, Dr. Kellogg stops him forcibly, slaps him across the face, apologizes profusely for having done so, and bewilderedly pleads that the boy just go to bed. So George walks around him, dumps his coat on the floor, and goes to bed. It's GREAT. The message(s)? If you thought modern vegetarians were bonkers, you haven't heard of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Also, if your desire is to alleviate the suffering of other creatures, fine; but everyone dies of something, and being a vegetarian won't save you from that. ***1/2
La Reine Margot (Queen Margot) - To cement a partnership between Protestants and Catholics in France, Margot de Valois (Isabelle Adjani) agrees to an arranged marriage to Henri of Navarre (Daniel Auteuil). Although she's a staunch supporter of Henri, she's not a loyal wife and takes up with a Protestant lover (Vincent Perez). During the St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre, she helps her lover escape, setting off a chain of events that alters their lives and the course of history.
I don't know if there's a lot of basis in reality, but French period pieces are chockobox full of freaky sexual relations. The Queen Mother Catherine (Virna Lisi) seems to have the hots for Anjou (Pascal Greggory), and Margot has apparently lost her virginity to one of her other brothers; but Margot prefers the company of this other guy from the court who she's trying to bang when her new husband walks in (because he's decided he won't be banging this other baroness on his wedding night). But then Margot kicks him out and goes walking the streets with her friend (in masks) to look for somebody else to bang--and finds Vincent Perez.
Vincent's character, by the way, already thinks that Margot is a filthy Catholic whore and has no idea that it's her he's having fun with. Sexy; but, of course, it doesn't end well. Incest, royal insanity, religious warring that would do the modern Middle East proud, and pretty impressive costumes and sets to watch throughout the whole business. Oh, yeah. And when they say Massacre, they mean it. They killed all the Protestant wedding guests. ALL of them. Except for Vincent's character. Message? Royals are crazy. Also, isn't it good that Christians have gotten over self-hatred in their unifying hatred of ... oh, everybody else? ****
Swept from the Sea - Shunned by her seaside farming community, servant girl Amy Foster (Rachel Weisz) reciprocates with silence and is thus branded a halfwit. She finds a kindred spirit, though, when shipwrecked Ukrainian Yanko Gooral (Vincent Perez) ambles onto her master's farm. While the rest of the townsfolk spurn the disheveled stranger, Amy gently cares for him, giving rise to romance, marriage and a child ... but tragedy lies just around the corner.
Yes, Vincent Perez again--and he's not speaking a lot of English in this one either. For the whole movie, I'm wondering, Why is everyone so bitchy with Amy? She's not an halfwit, and one can't help but feel that other people would figure that out if they'd just give her the time of day. And then the BIG SECRET is let loose towards the end, and it's kind of an oh moment, but in a very old-fashioned and 19th-century reasoning way. I kind of felt like the end was plodding--courtship, struggle, courtship--Married! Baby! Aggh! There's lots of selectiveness about the portrayal of life and how much time the film should devote to certain aspects. I just feel like Amy and Yanko are never happy (because we don't get to see them being very happy for very long--though clearly they must've had at least nine months of happiness that we don't get to witness at all). Message? Talk to people, or they'll just think you're a dunce. Then again, there's also that other saying--it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to open your mouth and prove it. ***
I got the Q Collective in the mail yesterday. He (Q) is so right on so many levels. The only reason Jean-Luc can prove him wrong on these occasions is the deus ex machina--the Enterprise crew has to prove him wrong, or there's no story after that. Real mankind? Real mankind sucks balls.
07 September 2006
a chocolate biscuit--covered in bees
Eddie Izzard update!
'Low Life', the drama series that Eddie has been working on for the last eighteen months was given the green light yesterday. FX channel have commissioned thirteen episodes which will air in the US late 2007. Eddie is absolutely thrilled.
"It's the part I have been waiting for all my life" says he.
Lots of love,
-- The BeeKeepers
I'm so happy for him ... and I know we don't have FX at our apartment, but if he gets 13 episodes, at least they'll eventually end up on DVD.
an ogre, a secret, and a game
Somehow England is soon ridding itself of Tony, but we still can't dethrone King George? Why not?
Last night, I watched: The Ogre, Mr Rice's Secret, and Nemesis Game. These are the bare-bones reviews.
The Ogre: The outbreak of World War II helps a French simpleton named Abel (John Malkovich) -- who was wrongfully accused of attacking a young girl -- avoid prison time. But when his army unit gets captured, he's imprisoned in a Nazi camp. The film unravels into a dark fairy tale in which Abel is groomed to train Hitler youth under the direction of der Führer's right-hand man, Hermann Goering (Volker Spengler).
It's sad, because, in the end, Abel wants to save the children in his charge (because their other teachers have gone off and died); but they're brainwashed little Nazi shit-heels who try to kill him for his effort. Message: Children suck. And destiny is not on your side. ***
Mr Rice's Secret: A terminally ill boy, Owen (Bill Switzer), discovers a sealed envelope addressed to him from Mr. Rice (David Bowie). Owen soon discovers that Mr. Rice has left him a medieval code ring, a treasure map and a series of clues -- clues that will lead him on a surreal treasure hunt and one step closer to his destiny ... which may save his life.
The premise is good, and David Bowie is surprisingly good in his relatively minor role, though I'm more often than not reminded of The Hunger and a little bit Labyrinth. However, it's low budget; and there's only so much you can do with the fantasy genre when you have no money. Message: Accept that you'll die one day, live in the now, and you'll be happy. And my parents are obviously incredibly lenient--kids in this movie are getting belted or threatened with being belted every ten minutes. Yes, terminally ill boy, you're weak and fragile, but you've misbehaved, so pull down your pants ... ? ***
Nemesis Game: Mystery-thriller about a shy college student, Sara (Carly Pope--from Popular), and her friend, Vern (Adrian Paul, doing his best to hide his accent), who spend their time solving mental games and riddles for fun. But when everyone around her starts dying one by one, Sara begins to wonder whether she's part of someone else's game. Could her life be in danger, too?
Short answer: Yes. Rena Owen and Ian McShane also star in this. Owen is a crazy woman who's seen "the great design" and become a murderess and McShane is Pope's policeman father. Everyone is conveniently tangled into the Toronto-set plot.
I suspected the ending would be a cop-out, and it sort of is. But it couldn't be otherwise; because if it weren't a cop-out, then it would've been a really good movie (not direct-to-video schtick). But between the believable craziness of Owen and my predisposition to enjoy watching Paul do anything, it was an enjoyable distraction. Message: You're better off not knowing the grand design of the universe; knowing will make you kill people for reasons known only to you. ***
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
