Posts

Billy the Kid to Rio: “Will you keep your eyes open? Will you look right at me as I do it?” I more or less randomly watched The Outlaw today; it was on this set of Western classics (original) I picked up last weekend on Jack Gulick’s advice. Fifty movies for thirty bucks was too good a deal to pass up. When I cracked open the box, I noticed The Outlaw. I like Howard Hughes, or at least his legend, so I popped it in. I only expected a cheesy Western with a lot of Jane Russell. Imagine my surprise when I got a Billy the Kid played by a guy who looks like a fey Johnny Depp and more subtext than you can shake Lucy Lawless at. ...

The Good Eats kitchen is up for sale, sort of. You get the kitchen, but not the utensils or the pots or pans or anything. But, you know, the stove is nice. And the house seems nice. It’s completely wired for Ethernet. You also get a meal cooked by Alton Brown. I think the best line in the listing is this: “For the ultimate birthday or holiday gift just buy the home for the dinner and resell afterward!”

So that’s settled, then; my pal Chris and I are venturing up to the Great White North (in the form of Montreal) the last weekend of this month to partake in movies. My schedule is basically the same one I outlined earlier, plus Saving Private Tootsie (original). I chose Hillside Strangler and Into the Mirror over my alternative choices in the end. I have tickets and I have a hotel reservation. If anyone happens to be in Montreal that weekend, lemme know and we’ll have beer or coffee or something. My free time will be sparse for obvious reasons, but I imagine… maybe I should say “we’ll have popcorn.” ...

Gosh, that’s unfortunate. Some of Bush’s service records were destroyed in 1996 and 1997. By accident. This should be easy enough to resolve; since Bush wasn’t the only guy whose records were lost, one assumes that there’d be an official record of the accident. Perhaps even a postmortem. Memos. That sort of thing. Except that I can’t help noticing that Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett said, in February of this year, that members of George Bush’s staff purged the National Guard files in 1997. Damned confluence of dates. Now, the records that Burkett says were destroyed were not the records that the Defense Department just admitted to destroying accidentally, so this is not exactly a smoking gun. I think the time period is still suggestive, however. If you believe Burkett, it’s not a stretch to suspect that the Texas Air National Guard was not the only organization willing to clean up Bush’s records. ...

Then, in Rwanda. Now, in Sudan. This is pretty much for me so that I don’t forget to read these regularly. On a semi-detached, attempting dispassionate note, the Rwanda blog is a new twist on the Pepys and Sei Shonagon blogs: historical events retold in the blog — dare I say it? — medium. I think it works.

What Steven Spielberg movie? I’m all about the webs, baby. You’re either gonna see it or not so I’ll just skip the ooohs and ahhhs and cut right to the spoilers and commentary. Oh, one thing. Step back with me to the halcyon days of 1994. Remember the guy who directed Dead Alive and Meet The Feebles, and the guy who directed the Evil Dead movies? They’re gonna be critically acclaimed directors who make billions of dollars at the box office. No, really. Very funny old world.

On the Fourth of July, I choose to commemorate the holiday with the words of one of the very first Harvard intellectual leftists, a moonbat and a traitor if there ever was one; a man whose reputation among the ruling classes was far worse than any Moore or Chomsky. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the most important men of the American Revolution, the loud-mouthed angry revolutionary, Samuel Adams. ...

Game quotes are a key part of the Ambercon experience. Thusly, my jotted notes from the weekend. They’re all funny from my perspective, and probably from the perspective of those who were in the games. Maybe not so much for others. Also my note-taking is terrible and unreliable.

Most of the movies which claim to be based on true stories aren’t. Odd, that the one recent work of fiction that really is rooted in fact (original) doesn’t mention the true story at all. And now, over on IMDB, the commenters mock The Terminal for an implausible premise. Funny old world. Anyhow: The Terminal is a really tasty eclair. It’s not deep but it’s awfully yummy and you can’t beat chocolate. It’s a very human movie, with a fine degree of attention towards choices and the difficulty of making them. At the heart, it’s about people caring about each other and it manages this without being schmaltzy. I smiled a lot, and I laughed a couple of times. ...

I’m not so sure about this new Democrat talking point (original). “The Republican National Convention is going to feature at least three guys who aren’t exactly in lock-step with the Bushies. John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Rudolph Giuliani are all set to get a prime time speaking slot. That’s John McCain who opposed Bush’s tax cut and has been critical on the administration’s disastrous record in Iraq, and the pro-choice Arnold and Rudy.” ...