My commute this morning was quicker than usual.
My kitten caught and ate a gecko! Just munched it right up.
That's fast -- my valiant ratter when I was in the Peace Corps was death on rats, but couldn't do much with geckos, or at least I never saw her catch one.
I get so depressed lately when I think that I actually miss the "good old days" when Sandra Day was still on the Court.
Sorry, not helping.
Um, the US wrested the Stanley Cup away from the Canadians? Via a southern state??
There's always a window of opportunity with geckos, because they have this endearing tendency to drop from the ceiling periodically This surprises them as much (or more) than the people they sometimes fall on. Then they freeze for a little while, trying to work out what happened. That's when they can become a kitty snack.
Maybe she was so fast that she caught the gecko, ate it, and was back before you knew it. Like the Flash.
I had a good cup of coffee today. Later, I'm going to a baseball game. On the other hand, I didn't go see The Birds in Bryant Park because I was sure it would be rained out. I also didn't leave work on time to see it, but would have if I thought it'd stay dry. Actually, I'm luke-warm in my judgment of that movie anyway.
Yeak also I have to add that my other kitty is missing and is probably... having a great time somewhere.
My neighbour kindly told me that it is too small to be worth eating, so I needn't worry on that account.
They are my favorite house pest -- they're cute, eat bugs, and make that neat little chirping noise.
Back in the Peace Corps we used to have a joke about the symptoms of the DTs in Samoa: "Lizards, lizards all over the walls... why don't I see any lizards on the walls? Bugs, crawling all over me -- where are all the bugs that should be crawling on me?!? AAAAAHHH!!!"
Most of my brethren are fairly considerate, and we will leave your caves if asked politely.
That counts as good news, right?
Um, the US wrested the Stanley Cup away from the Canadians? Via a southern state??
I believe the Hurricanes, prior to becoming the Hurricanes and moving to North Carolina, were a canadian franchise.
Looks like it will be a good year for our garden -- lots of humidity and sun. Old potatoes which I had thrown in the compost heap sprouted; TMY and I transplanted them and they are thriving! Never grew potatoes before. TMW planted a honeysuckle vine next to the porch and it is threatening to make the porch its own.
The Birds is pretty scary.
I love seeing films in Bryant Park.
Why is gmail such a hateful void of misery?
They shit everywhere, and their chirp is like a thousand jackhammers from hell in the middle of the night. You need a more worthy favorite house pest. I'm sure someone here will volunteer.
When I'm done with my test on Wednesday, I'm going to recorrall everyone back to the Montaigne essay, don't worry.
I forgot I had the day off tomorrow. I also forgot (by chance) my wife also has the day off. And ... it's forecast to be sunny.
So we're going to drive to the seaside and walk along cliffs, take photos, eat prawns and stuff.
Also, tonight will be drinking beer and watching football [not especially special at the moment though, that one].
No, my current favorite housepest is an Australian Shepherd cross known here as DogBreath. She looks kinda like Jim Henley's dog, only crazier and with more spots.
My commute this morning was quicker than usual.
My new commute is hellishly long, but I use it to finish whole books in 2 days.
I believe the Hurricanes, prior to becoming the Hurricanes and moving to North Carolina, were a canadian franchise.
That's just silly. Who ever heard of a hurricane in Canada?
Jim Henley's dog bears a strange resemblance to a blog.
Oh, you're talking about the little guy on the right-hand side! Got it.
our IT guy just helped us install TVUPlayer on our computers, so we can watch the World Cup at our desks... that's good news!
17: Well, that seems more worthy. That breed doesn't look particularly Australian - why is it so?
You need a more worthy favorite house pest. I'm sure someone here will volunteer.
This is a set-up, right? I've seen this before. They ask for volunteers, you step forward, and then WHAM! down comes the shoe.
I believe the Hurricanes, prior to becoming the Hurricanes and moving to North Carolina, were a canadian franchise.
No, they were the Hartford (CT) Whalers. Before that, they were based in Boston.
11.
The Hurricanes were the Whalers (Boston & Hartford). Nice nautical theme.
The picture may be of a Border Collie, which is a related sheepdog-breed; I'm not sure. And DogBreath is actually 3/4 Aussie, 1/4 BC. But the Australian Shepherd has nothing at all to do with Australia -- they're sheepdogs that were brought to the American Southwest from the Basque region of Spain. IIRC, the name comes from the fact that they tended to be owned and used by Australians working in the US. (Australian Cattledogs, on the other hand, are actually from Australia.)
25: With worries like that, how giant are you?
No, they were the Hartford (CT) Whalers.
I used to beat the shit out them in NHL '94, then, my only point of reference.
Why is gmail such a hateful void of misery?
Whatcha got against it, Joey D?
Also, I've never thought much of The Birds; it was for me the weakest part of a Hitchcock festival I saw almost everything in. I allow that maybe I didn't get it.
With worries like that, how giant are you?
I wear a size 12, so GMC could be pretty big.
I wonder if the size of GMC is correlated with the length of slol's middle finger.
Haven't measured myself lately, but I would say even my four-inch cousins might still be well advised to steer clear of slol's size 12s.
Haven't measured myself lately
That's what they all say.
Hey, the kitten just caught another gecko. He's a killing machine! This one is a bit larger and gruesome.
slol, is it working for you? I've been getting this all morning:
We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.
JD- Gmail is working just fine for me.
Works for me -- I reckon GMail just has it in for JD
Neither of these are news, but the Spider Robinson speech I linked to addresses exactly the feeling you're talking about.
But if we are getting more and better Bad News than any generation in history, is it any wonder that we are stunned goofy? Robert Heinlein had his character Jubal Harshaw wonder aloud about the pernicious psychic effects of "wallowing daily in the troubles of six billion strangers"--and sometime later Theodore Sturgeon addressed Harshaw's question, in a bone-chilling story called, "And Now The News..." The hero, driven mad by news, quotes John Dunne's line about every man's death diminishing him...and decides to go out there and diminish mankind right back. The last line is, "He got eight people before they brought him down." Sturgeon wrote this decades before serial killers became a commonplace.
Actually I've recently mentioned someone else who's written about how to avoid getting too depressed by the news -- Fran Peavey. That really was the message of the Atomic Comics act -- the news is depressing but, looked at the right way, it's also funny, and her activist work over the last 20 years is inspiring.
gmail's broken for me, Joe. You're not alone.
Ok, this is really sucky. I just logged in on the gmail account for one of my aliases, and it's fine. But still the same message for my jdrymala account. Grrrr.
Yay Becks! All the cool kids are getting server error messages.
gmail account for one of my aliases
blondboitoi4u@gmail.com?
Health Care is important. I used Healthia.com to get my health insurance at a great rate. I love my health savings account.
gmail's working for me.
The Birds is one of Hitchcock's weaker films, but still quite good--we're speaking relatively here. What is amazing, though? Notorious. So money it's ridiculous.
or was it andrewlloydwebberfanclubpresidentforlife@gmail.com?
Joe D. and Becks, sitting in a tree
Unable to communicate with anybody else
Outside of the blog comments, they
Found themselves drawn to one another
Joe's weathered, manly hand
Brushed a tear from Becks' soft cheek
And he consoled her -- "Don't worry
About it babe, they'll have to learn
To live without us -- we'll be fine together."
She threw her arms around his sinewed neck
And gasped in his ear, "Don't leave me!"
And he felt her heaving bosom against
His leathery chest. "Don't cry babe,
We'll be all right," as he fumbled for
The light switch...
That's some tree, with a light switch and all.
For a blond boi toi, that's some pretty serious weather/leather/sinew.
I've said (I think here and I know on my blog) that Shadow of a Doubt is the Hitchcock film which most consistently fails to get the recognition it deserves. It would also, I think make my top five of his, but I'm not looking at a list of them right now and can't therefore be certain.
Haven't measured myself lately
I have my Indian manservant measure me.
blondboitoi4u@gmail.com
What, you think this one wasn't already taken?
So, uh, that hasn't been you I've been chatting with?
Cala probably missed this weekend's festivities in Pittsburgh. But that's sad news, I guess.
Shadow of a Doubt is the Hitchcock film which most consistently fails to get the recognition it deserves.
No way. That distinction goes indubitably to Lifeboat.
The weird thing about The Birds is that it's as good as any Hitchcock movie, but Psycho is so much better than any other one, that one wonders hopw many other film-makers (artists) have produced a large body of work with ONE piece shooting out head and shoulder above the rest.
Also, sometimes when I masturbate I don't come. Question: do bloggers wank off as much as writers? Do we all wank off more because we spend all our time sitting at keyboards?
Is there a gender difference? Do women titivate themselves as much as men in front of keyboards. It would be easier for a woman to jerk off at a keyboard, because her dick wouldn't get in the way.
62: Also a good one. I was impressed that he managed to squeeze in a cameo in that movie.
I like Rope. I've never seen Shadow of a Doubt. I also like the Jimmy Stewart Man Who Knew Too Much, though I realize it's considered one of his minor works.
I'd like to know the train of association that leads from the first paragraph of 63 to the second paragraph of 63.
65- Thinking about Tony Perkins, of course.
And gmail is still a big plateful of testicles.
67: Well then, Mormon country is going to have some problems with gmail.
Let's see. Good news:
LB's handle for her dog is DogBreath, which made me smile.
I have new lip gloss.
The U.S. still has a teeny chance in the World Cup.
The power has not gone off in my apartment for a whole 24 hours now.
72- Damn. It's supposed to be Tony in a pink bathing suit.
NYC is the most polite city in the world.
I also like the Jimmy Stewart Man Who Knew Too Much, though I realize it's considered one of his minor works.
It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I've said this before, but Hitchcock's British The Man Who Knew Too Much is much, much better.
I buy it. This:
Native New Yorker Dan Norman, 36, from East Rockaway, said: "The thing to remember is that New Yorkers are not rude, they are brusque.
sums it up. People from the rest of the country think we're rude because they find our body-language unpleasant, not because we're doing rude stuff.
eb, your mom is much, much better.
Maybe I shouldn't read this thread backwards. Notorious I couldn't stand either, Rope and Shadow of a Doubt are really, really good. These are not opinions, by the way, but objective statements of fact whose instrument of expression is my keyboard. I have no choice but to type these words. Or else the universe will collapse upon itself.
Joe D, your mom this morning was quicker than usual.
63 -- funny. I like almost every Hitchcock movie I have seen that predates Psycho, better than Psycho. I just don't get it, I guess -- perhaps repeated viewings of Psycho will straighten me out. My big faves are Lifeboat and The 39 Steps, and I seem to remember liking either Sabotage or Saboteur a whole lot. Psycho and The Birds are like the only ones that I have not really dug.
Notorious I couldn't stand either
WHAT??? Ingrid is *great* in Notorious, as is Claude Rains. It's fun watching Cary Grant try to be an asshole. The finale is superb.
But then, The Birds never worked for me.
Joe D, your mom this morning was quicker than usual.
She was faking it so you'd leave already.
81: How could you not like To Catch a Thief?
And gmail finally returns for me, and I have a total of 1 new email in my inbox, and it's spam.
I'm partial to The Lady Vanishes. Although I sometimes confuse that with Night Train to Munich, which features a few of the same characters.
And thoughts of Night Train reminds me that I'm constantly wondering, when I see films featuring Sexy Rexy, why he had thinner hair as a young man than he did as an older one.
77 gets it exactly right. There's also a fair amount of "busting yer chops" type customer service that I think throws off people not used to it.
That said, one time I was walking, quite briskly, as is my wont, down the sidewalk in NYC and up ahead was an apparently homeless woman pushing one of those big flatbed four-wheeled dollies instead of the usual shopping cart towards me. It was pretty heavily laden and thus somewhat difficult to maneuver.
She was still a good 20 feet or so away and I for some reason started to head left towards the curb to go around her. Just then she started to head in the same direction. I quickly changed course and there was never any danger of a collision, but as I passed she looked hard at me and calmly but forcefully said, "Stay on your side. Stupid."
Actually that made me smile for a good ten minutes, so I hesitate to label it rude, and anyway she was well within her rights.
Also: Notorious is great. Anderson forgot to mention how great the evil Nazi grandmother is.
Hmm... I think Lifeboat and The 39 Steps might also be the only Hitchcock films I have seen on the big screen. [Late edit: No! Also I saw The Trouble with Harry on the big screen, and it was a lot of fun if not in the same class.] But I think that is not the root of it, because they were already fixed as my favorite Hitchcock films at the time I saw them on the big screen. If any of you hear about Hitchcock showing in a theater around NYC area I'd be deeply grateful to you for letting me know about it.
I never watched To Catch a Thief all the way through. If a Hitchcock movie was grandly staged in an alluring setting full of glamorous stars, I probably didn't like it.
83: You clearly have much more experience with your mom than I do.
Anderson forgot to mention how great the evil Nazi grandmother is.
Quite right. The final (?) scene where Rains has to walk back in to her & the other Nazis is super.
Also, tho not particular to this film, I'm reminded how cool it was to drive cars where you could just scoot over from the driver's side & get out the passenger's side, or vice-versa. To say nothing of the back seats. I think puritanical anti-sex crusaders are responsible for modern automotive interior design. Or maybe the Japanese are doing it some way I haven't discovered yet.
I've no regrets. I've been everywhere and done everything. I've eaten caviar at Cannes, sausage rolls at the dogs. I've played baccarat at Biarritz and darts with the rural dean. What is there left for me but marriage?
Yeah, I love those big bench seats, but that love is in tension with my love for stick shifts. Was the shift on the steering column in those things? They didn't have automatic transmissions back then, did they?
Or maybe the Japanese are doing it some way I haven't discovered yet.
This is almost certainly true, regardless of the possible connection to car seat design.
Gmail is working just fine for me.
I think we're moving to Cali. It stresses me the fuck out, but I think it's going to happen and really, it's a good thing.
Right?
Why does it stress you out (aside from the fact that the act of moving itself is a giant pain in the ass)?
94: 3-on-the-column, yep. Also, automatic transmission has been pretty common since the 50's, but at the time of Notorious, not so much.
Three-on-the-tree was the standard American style, available on fleet cars into the 1970s, but floor shifters were common too, on earlier cars and trucks. The shifter shaft was very long, came out of a place fairly far forward on the floor at an angle, then bent upward for the last foot or so. You could easily slide past it, but you were sitting much more upright than you do today. Bucket seats arrived in the sixties, following sports car practice.
97: B/c it means quitting this job w/out one in hand, b/c I've got committments for the fall I'm going to break, b/c I can't give notice *quite* yet b/c Mr. B. needs a security clearance before it's *for real* for real, b/c this house needs SO much work before it can be sold, b/c we're moving to a MUCH more expensive housing market, and b/c it's a fuck of a long distance move!! Ahh!!!
And I'm semi-anonymizing b/c I haven't given notice yet.
Oh, also, b/c this job offer has been up and down and in the works for 2 months--we thought it was happening, then it got yanked for budget/funding reasons, now it's back. It's kind of a rollercoaster of stress.
If any of you hear about Hitchcock showing in a theater around NYC area I'd be deeply grateful to you for letting me know about it.
It's not NYC; it's just north of Philadelphia. But the Ambler, PA, movie theater is doing a trifecta of Rear Window, Suspicion, and Strangers on a Train, Thursdays in July and August.
Rear Window on a big screen is especially nice; the tension during Grace Kelly's Nancy Drew sleuthing of the murderer's apartment is great.
Also, no one has mentioned North by Northwest? For all the terrible sexism, it also gives you Leo G. Carroll, Jessie Royce Landis, and some truly sneaky dialogue (Hitchcock playing with the censors again).
"The Birds" as a short story really freaked me out.
Good luck with all that, b, hope everything works out for the best.
That certainly sounds stressful, yes. But since you really hate where you currently live, I'm sure the move will turn out to be the right decision.
Research says moving is the 2nd most stressful thing that can happen to anyone (beaten only by the death of a child).
Just stay drunk for the duration would be wise.
106: Wow, I must really be stressed out then. I've moved no less than (counting...) 9 times in the last six years.
Hey, silvana, you know what might release that stress? Giving some BJs.
I know it'll be okay. It's just the getting there. I'm finding myself very uncharacteristically feeling passive and disengaged rather than freaked-out and anxious about it. I actually had a big convo with Mr. B. this morning that was *designed* to get me kind of freaked-out and anxious so that we (I) can start doing the things that need to get done!!
Good luck, b, I can imagine moving without a job offer would be a bit of a nail-biter. What'll happen with PK, if Mr. B's going back to work?
Oh, and thank you all for the good wishes!
I've never sold a house before. Eeeee.....
103 -- Thanks! That's excellent to hear, and The Modesto Kid Brother is in Philly this summer, maybe we will be able to swing a rendez-vous.
North by Northwest -- great movie.
It will be really great to see Rear Window on a big screen -- I could really see I was missing out on something when I wastched the video.
111: My plan is to take a year and write. Which means I'll be the PK mom for a while (and anyway, academic jobs won't open up again until fall 2007).
My darling mother in law said to me the other day that if I have to stay here for the fall semester b/c of teaching obligations, PK should stay with me "because it would be so hard on Mr. B. to have to work and take care of someone else at the same time." Sometimes I want to pound my inlaws over the head with a board.
JD, that's sweet of you to volunteer, but I wouldn't want you let you degrade yourself by being an oppressor like that.
Aha! It is not as I at first thought a trippel feature -- oh well. Here is the schedule. Movies are also showing at Bryn Mawr and County cinemas.
My plan is to take a year and write.
Hooray for you! I'm jealous.
118: Thanks! I really hope it works out.
B:
Take a year and write? What are you complaining about? I'd move to Baghdad for that. OK, maybe not Baghdad. Phoenix.
Not complaining, worrying. I'm neurotic. What if this is just some lame excuse to rationalize quitting my job and disappointing Linda Hirshman?
Any excuse to quit any job is a good excuse.
Congrats to Mr. B, B! And congrats to you on having time to write! And condolences for having to move. At least moving forces you to throw out things. But still.
Thanks, Cala!!
We threw stuff out last time we moved. And yet, we still seem to have brought an awful lot of useless crap with us. Maybe we should just burn the place down as we leave town.
At long last you'll finally have time to start regularly commenting on Unfogged!
125: That's one way to pop the real estate bubble.
Stop oppressing me with your rationalizations for cruelty.
B: Good luck with the move, the security clearance, and the writing.
Hitchcock movies mentioned in this thread, prior to this comment (in order of first mention): The Birds, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Psycho, Rope, Man Who Knew Too Much (US), Man Who Knew Too Much (UK), The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Saboteur, To Catch a Thief, The Lady Vanishes, The Trouble With Harry, Rear Window, Suspicion, Strangers on a Train, and North by Northwest.
If you've seen, rank'em.
130: Okay, if you stop oppressing me with your crazy man-hating feminist ways.
Semi anonymous prof w/ Phd--
Moving sucks. I had the most horrendous experience teh spring after my Freshman year of college. After that year, I refused to take any spring semester course with a final exam on the last day of exam period.
That Linda Hirshmann piece depressed the hell out of me, because I'm not constitutionally capable of being the sort of high-powered, highly driven person she describes even though I want status, money and power--though mostly I want money and influence. I'm not so keen on raw power. I was too depressed to comment on the other thread, because I felt like I was letting down all of womankind. I'm not even talking about slowing down to take care of kids; I'm just talking about the fact that I'm completely useless if I stay up all night. But then I realized something. Law and banking are different from other areas.
This is the point where I stop being narcissistic and get back to your concerns. It seems to me that in a non-science academic field, it might be possible to take time off and treat it like a sabbatical: get some research done and a book out. That could actually help to boost your career. If it's both academically rigorous and kind of popular, you could work on being an awesoem public intellectual, which, depending on your field, might make you even more desirable.
That is what I am hoping, yes. Thanks for the pep talk :)
That Linda Hirshmann piece depressed the hell out of me, because I'm not constitutionally capable of being the sort of high-powered, highly driven person she describes even though I want status, money and power--though mostly I want money and influence. I'm not so keen on raw power. I was too depressed to comment on the other thread, because I felt like I was letting down all of womankind. I'm not even talking about slowing down to take care of kids; I'm just talking about the fact that I'm completely useless if I stay up all night.
Oh, man, me too. I have the work ethic of a housecat; give me a patch of sun and I can sleep for 20 hours a day. You have the life you can hack with the personality you have.
(And just to be clear -- the bottom of that list is above 95% of other, non-Hitchcock movies I have seen.)
(IMDB to the rescue!) Sabotage is the one I like.
Of the ones I've seen:
Notorious
Psycho
The Birds
The Trouble With Harry
North by Northwest
Rear Window
Rope
*I unquestionably like Vertigo better, but that wasn't mentioned in this thread.
†This could easily be switched with the entry preceding it.
**I love heist movies, Cary Grant is great and I have nothing against Grace Kelly. But this isn't the kind of thing that Hitchcock does well. Here's how you know: people say Charade is Hitchcock-lite, but it's not really all that much like any Hitchcock movie (that I've seen) besides TCAT, and Charade is much better because that is the kind of thing its director does. For that matter Dirty Rotten Scoundrels might be a better riff on this plot.
[If you think I'm generating this much material and not turning it into a post on my own blog, you're mistaken.]
Took me a while to decide and then get it formatted all right. And then I worried I was being too canonical.
If you've seen, rank'em.
Rear Window Worth it for Thelma Ritter alone.
North by Northwest See 103.
The 39 Steps On-the-run Robert Donat does a one-size-fits all political speech. Bonus points: taking off silk stockings (hers) while handcuffed to blonde Madeline Carroll.
Man Who Knew Too Much (US) Bernard Herrmann rocks. So what about the overplayed Doris Day song. The whole arc at the end is a terribly powerful conclusion to an otherwise kind of uneven movie.
Man Who Knew Too Much (UK) Saw it years ago; remember being impressed at how much less passive the mother character was. But the technical quality of the film was so much poorer than the later U.S. version.
Strangers on a Train Can't stand it. Only ranking because I vaguely want to give it technical marks.
Notorious You know, nothing to say, actually.
The Trouble With Harry The humor in this one is like trying to share a New Yorker cartoon at a dive bar. But hello, brunette Shirley MacClaine. Why did you ever listen to your hairdresser?
To Catch a Thief Basically an excuse for gorgeous actors to wear expensive clothes while lounging decadently in luxe European settings. Oh, wait, there's a plot?
Haven't seen/can't remember the others.
Hey speaking of your blog, did you ever get back to John Fund?
No, and everytime I load my blog I feel bad about it, but I haven't taken the time to look back at that case and spell out the problem. It's basically that he gives a weird picture of the status quo before the bill he doesn't like passes, as well as an odd one of the likely future effect of its passage.
(IMDB to the rescue!) Sabotage is the one I like.
While rolling over in his grave, Joseph Conrad accidentally triggered a bomb someone else had placed in his coffin, blowing himself to smithereens.
On eb's 100, I was halfway scrolling back to comment 39 before I thought, "damn you!"
North by Northwest is fun. And Stewart being cranky and Grace kelly being Grace kelly is pretty amazing in Rear window. But of the pearls not mentioned, I like the staute of liberty stair climbing scene in Saboteur.
I have fond memories of watching The Birds, Marnie and The 39 Steps on tv when I was just old enough and attentive enough to enjoy their construction. They seemed head and shoulders above most movies I had seen in "artistry." I don't know what I would think of them now. When the technicolor ones were re-released in the 80s, we made a point of seeing them in theaters. I was disappointed, on the whole. Rear Window was my favorite of those, because of the appreciation of urban life and the real ambivalence and tension between Jimmy's and Grace's characters. The other movies in that group left me cold. I think Notorious and Shadow of a Doubt are the best of his I have seen, although I like the action ones, like 39S, the one with Rex on the cablecars, or NxNW as entertainment
eb -- Why, did Hitchcock murder the novel? (Or was it a short story?)
Also, gmail? Still down. I am the least beloved by Google.
151 -- aw it's all right, Becks, don't cry. Here, rest your head on my manly, powerful shoulder.
Back off, TMK. Becks is busy massaging my sinewy neck.
I am also getting no gmail love. What if people are trying to write me?!
IIRC, Sabotage sets up a bit of a romance between Mrs. Verloc and one of the policeman and this has little resemblance to the actual relations between people in the novel. But I'm skimming the novel online now looking for something else, and realizing that my memory of both film and book is probably somewhat faulty. But I really liked the book.
I will have to read it -- I had not even known prior to just now that Sabotage was based on a Conrad novel (The Secret Agent) -- I am looking at Wikipaedia and some other places that make it sound pretty interesting.
Here is the beginning of it -- the dedication and first paragraph are very nice.
Oh, man, me too. I have the work ethic of a housecat; give me a patch of sun and I can sleep for 20 hours a day. You have the life you can hack with the personality you have.
Except that I'm pretty good when the sun's out. Give me a cold rainy day or winter darkness, and I just want to roll up and go to sleep or curl up with a cup of tea in front of the TV.
It's even more confusing that Hitchcock made a movie called The Secret Agent, not based on the novel. I haven't seen that one.
159 -- One of the pages I was looking at said he would have called Sabotage that, except he had just released a film with that title. (I'm pretty sure I have not seen it either.)
(Looks worth seeing, though!)
158: I'm at my most productive on dark and stormy nights. Nice weather makes me want to play outside.
Here's what I've seen; I can't rate them individually from memory so by category:
At the top:
Psycho (1960)
Rope (1948)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The 39 Steps (1935)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Mostly liked:
Frenzy (1972)
Marnie (1964)
The Birds (1963)
Rear Window (1954)
Saboteur (1942)
I have no real strong opinions that I can remember about:
Family Plot (1976)
Topaz (1969)
I Confess (1953)
Spellbound (1945)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Young and Innocent (1937)
Really disliked, despite the presencd of some very well-made scenes in most of these movies:
Torn Curtain (1966)
North by Northwest (1959)
Vertigo (1958)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Notorious (1946)
Sabotage (1936)
My belief that Lifeboat is the most underrated Hitchcock film is getting way strengthened by this thread. Seriously you guys, go see Lifeboat! It blows my mind every time I watch it, which is currently somewhere between 10 and 15 times now.
The biggest plus of my time in Virginia (and the biggest obstacle to my productivity during my stays) is that I have the best, softest, most wonderful, most comfortable bed in the world here. (When my little brother was about 7 and came out to visit, he called it my "marshmallow bed".) Cold and rainy? Dark and stormy? A beautiful sunbeam? Everything seems like a great excuse to crawl back in it with a book or for a nap.
Shadow of a Doubt indeed pwns. I thought Notorious was pretty corny, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise if I could get some action out of the deal.
Oh, never mind. Once again the offer has been withdrawn. I guess we're not moving after all. Although the company is "still hoping to move forward with this thing." Goddamn federal goddamn budget goddamn putamadre bullshit.
I'm going to go buy some cigarettes.
Drat. And drat again. Rassenfrassen jerking-people-around employers; they all suck.
166 and 168 get their respective "it"s exactly right.
I like writing when I am happy. Sunshine makes me happy. But when it is sunny and warm out I don't want to be indoors writing on any damn metaphysics. I want to play in the park. When it rains I'm happy to be inside, but then I don't want to write because the weather is crummy and that's why God invented DVDs.
Most of my life is an exercise in not doing my dissertation, I fear.
I've seen pieces of many of the Hitchcock movies. So, shower scene, check, end of Psycho, check, most of N by NW, end of Vertigo, check, climax of Rear Window check, climax of The Birds check. This is what happens when classic movies are run on network TV when you're small.
Sheesh, that's a drag, B. But enjoy the cigarettes.
Now that eb's broken the 131 "rank the one's that were already in this thread" rule (or maybe I did when I mentioned that Vertigo would be at the top if it were already in the thread), I've also seen Rebecca, Dial M for Murder, and Frenzy. I'm not going to figure out where those fit right now. I've started watching both Notorious and Spellbound more than once, but never finished either. And not because I wasn't enjoying them, other things just came up.
Well, this gives you more time to plan how you would do things if you do them, B. But sorry.
170 -- Whatchoo talkin' 'bout?
175 -- Never mind, now I see what you're getting at. I thought you were making some kind of weird grammar joke.
Sorry to hear that, b.
I feel that a correct answer to 175 would be given in terms of lambda-abstraction, but I'm not good enough at lambda-abstraction to do it.
That just reminded me: at that Canada-themed costume party I went to weekend before last, one guy was wearing a Diff'rent Strokes t-shirt that had a picture of whatshisname the little one on it and the "What you talkin' about, Willis?" quote.
But, he had skillfully modified the "u" so that it said "What you talkin' aboot, Willis?"
Also, sorry to hear it, B.
That kitten really seems to want me to spell lambda correctly.
Don't worry too much about it, eb. Soon w-lfs-n will be on hiatus, and if there is no w-lfs-n, then everything is permitted.
Putain d'employeurs. Qu'ils aillent se fassent foutre. That's truly shitty behavior from them, B.
My mom reports from the scene that the sanitized nature of the article linked in 61 is apparently due to restrictions placed on the reporter after the subtle innuendoes of a previous Vanity Fair article.
My mom is on the scene because she lives in Pittsburgh! Shut up!
Oh good god. Push the furries in the Mon.
Is the idea here that furries would be stranger if they weren't doing it for sex? If so, I question that.
I don't think so, w/d.
At least one of the people linked in 190 would be quite chattable if she were dressed that way at a Halloween party rather than a furry convention. And better photographed.
And, you know, nothing wrong with furryism if that's your thing. Some people are into dressing as furries, apostropher's mom is into afro'd philosophy grad students, who is to say that one preference is better than the other?
That suck, B. Wishing you hope for another opportunity soon more or less sucks, but I'll wish it anyway.
Thahks everyone. The reason it's so upsetting is a long story: verbal offer, then "oops, we anticipated our budget" followed by three subsequent lowerings of the salary and signing bonus, followed by sudden federal hold on all security clearances, followed by emergency congressional appropriation of funds, followed by being back "on," followed by verbal offer, followed by written offer, followed by some negotiation over discrepencies re. details, followed by withdrawal of offer over budget problems.
In other words, four months of this up and down shit. I'm about ready to tear my hair out.
Thank god, though, I never went in and gave notice.
Sorry to fuck up the "cheerful comments" thread.
Don't worry about it. Nothing in the thread was all that cheerful, anyway.
Hey, chin up! [Redacted; town where you are] has so many wonderful things! [Redacted; place you were going] is full of horrible [redacted; revealing descriptive term] people! [Redacted; employer you would have been slave to] is obviously a pack of incompetent jerks!
Plus, there's liquor, and the intriguing underside of tables!
All true. But first, the ranting and frothing at the mouth.
Sorry to hear that, B. Sounds like the same budget dumbfuckery that just got my wife's newly-hired and much-appreciated co-worker laid off. The good news, supposedly, was that they expect the money to come through any day. The bad news was that with two small kids and a wife still out on maternity leave, he couldn't afford to take any chances and went back to his old job. Thank you, Republican Congress! Glad to know you have your priorities straight, you gay-marriage-and-flag-burning-obsessed fuckwits! It's not like national security stuff is supposed to be something you care about or anything.
Yes. The silver lining is they didn't pull this shit on us *after* we'd moved 2,500 miles and put a down payment on a half million dollar house. So, hey, bright side.
That's hit one of my high school friends, too. Works for a DOE subcontractor, the goverment cuts the budget, he's on notice that he could be laid off, but they dont' know yet, probably not until the week before his wedding.
Fuckwits.
Well, I hope it works out eventually anyway. Coasts are a good thing.
Thank you. I agree. Coasts and mountains both.
171: That is why God made Northern California. Seriously though, I remember seeing kids from the Bay Area in college complain about crisp September/ October days in New England. They were sunny and glorious, and the guy was complaining, because he couldn't wear shorts! I later asked my roommate from Atherton how anyone ever managed to get any work done. She said that people just take it for granted. Northern California: teh place where te weather makes it possible for you to work and play!
apostropher's mom is into afro'd philosophy grad students
My mom has cancer, asshole.
No, wait. That was somebody else.
Do you have any prejudices you're willing to acknowledge? > 'Furries' (e.g., people who get a sexual kick out of dressing up in big animal costumes or playing virtual characters who are human-animal hybrids) squick me out.
This is partially cheering: my laptop died yesterday when the power supply connection broke. But the hard drive is fine and it's connected to the computer I'm using right now. I have to get a new laptop, though.
In the hour it took you to make that joke I nearly bought Lifeboat and/or The Wire, reminded myself that I was supposed to be looking at computers, and left the store without buying anything.
Couldn't get it going in in hour, huh? Wow. Too bad.
I meant eb, but I'm quite happy to impugn your masculinity as well.
I actually didn't understand 211 at all, so I just naturally assumed it was impugning my masculinity.
207/8: I find that fairly cheering relative to my laptop breaking, although the chronological and spatial distance between me and the people who ought to be fixing it for free in a finite amount of time is disheartening. (I mean, it would be better than losing everything.)
215: Actually it is pretty cheering compared to every laptop breaking with dissertation materials on it that aren't entirely backed up story I've ever heard. But I posted 208 because I felt I was robbing myself of the chance to complain. Me--victim, too!
Losing my entire dissertation would probably be an improvement upon't.
But my laptop better not fucking die. I have this thing budgetted for four years.
216: I think it's impugning your manhood. But I'm not sure.
206:
people who play identity games in online environments (e.g., have multiple identities, who have 'sock puppets', etc.) bug me
*snf*
It means B is accustomed to sex being finished really, really quickly.
But my laptop better not fucking die. I have this thing budgetted for four years.
This is the problem. My laptop had only six more months until retirement; and six months ago it would have still been covered by the three year warranty.
222: Apo, I'm pretty sure you meant to say, "What's with 211?"
If the patriarchy remains baffled, B wins!
211 was me sucking at a cock joke. You know. EB went around for an hour, almost did this, almost did that, forgot about the other thing, then remembered, and in the end, just couldn't get anything done.
211 was me sucking at a cock
The patriarchy wins!
me sucking at a cock joke
That hangs so low it's practically insulting. Of course on preview apostropher already has it.
That hangs so low it's practically insulting
You don't have to take other people's gifts as a personal affront, Weiner. It's kind of petty.
My fruit gets picked by whoever's first in line.
232 is right; b, I will accept your gifts gladly. I'd say 'low-hanging' gifts, but that would probably be considered an insult too.
isn't B's grammar actually right there? I think 235 is an incorrection.
Once the Heat win this game, and the series, I will commit seppuku.
No, Apo's right. "My fruit" is the subject.
No, B's right, I think. "Whoever" is the subject of "whoever is first in line".
We're gonna be so lost without w-lfs-n.
Speaking of laptops, I recommend no one get a Dell laptop. In my experience those things are about three times slower than you would expect given the CPU, memory, disk speed, etc. Something wrong in there. Get an HP or Toshiba.
Dell desktops, on the other hand, tend to be fine. Get the business desktops, though. The home ones are less stable.
It won't be so bad. We'll all just go a-whoring at Ozzfest.
Speaking of the NBA Finals, fuck!
Build your own desktop or find someone who can, it'll be cheaper and better.
I'm very disappointed in how that turned out.
I nominate these cats to be the official happy fun page cats of unfogged.
I only saw the 4th quarter; it wasn't any fun.
I always find the fourth quarter more boring. It stops being about watching beautiful plays and starts being about making points. Too many timeouts, and too many commercials.
Shorter 252: basketball should be more like soccer.
But I don't like soccer as much as basketball!
You just think that because you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy.
There are only 10 kinds of people in life: those who can count, and those who can't.
Build your own desktop or find someone who can, it'll be cheaper and better.
Good idea for the technically proficient. Horrible idea for a lot of people who are afraid to even open up the tower, or to who every part looks the same, or who simply don't have the time to screw around with it.
If you do want to build your own computer, here is a practical set of instructions.
So has anyone tried Jose Cuervo Black? I'm intrigued, but I am disinclined to buy because I hate the commercials, and don't generally buy Cuervo, anyway. Similarly, I'm intrigued by Captain Morgan Tattoo, but it's a stupid name.
Haven't tried that, but Coka Cola Blak is worth avoiding.
Black Black, on the other hand, is pretty good, in a strange sort of way.
Hey did you guys catchthe cover of this week's Village Voice? I can't find a copy of it online but it's pretty funny. If you live in/around NYC take a look.
Also in the Village Voice: Make your own fake grappa!
That's the one I was thinking of. Touching.
Umm, how much time did you spend looking for it, TMK?
Literal minutes!
Well anyway figurative minutes -- probably about a third of one literal minute.
anyone who drinks captain morgan anything should be forced to walk the plank as a reward for supporting the most annoying ad campaign ever.
I nominate these cats to be the official happy fun page cats of unfogged.
Over at apo's place, I nominated this one for that honor.
Am I the only one who was surprised that the link in 260 was actually to an article about how to build a computer, and not to an article calling people who build their own computer wankers or assholes or some such.
To be fair, the linked article does both.
That article on making grappa, why the hell does he call that grappa? It's more like a fruit liqueur or cordial something. I've had a great version of that in Greece, homemade, from wild cherries and brandy (and I think cinnamon and perhaps a few other spices). Yum.
Oh and Mrs. Tsourides also let the sugar and wild cherries ferment for several days in a warm spot before adding the brandy.
But why use the name grappa? It probably doesn't really taste anything like grappa, other than being strongly alcoholic, and it isn't made from the same ingredients or using the same methods.
Unless grappa has a broader meaning that I'm unaware of. Is grappa is the Italian word for "hooch"?
So has anyone tried Jose Cuervo Black? I'm intrigued, but I am disinclined to buy because I hate the commercials, and don't generally buy Cuervo, anyway.
If you're ever in Mexico Cuervo Reserva de la Familia is supposedly great.
I'm doing something like that "grappa" shit (given the sugar seems what he's actually making is a liqueur) with some apricots and spices even now! I expect it to thoroughly rock or be gross when I get back.
Am I the only one who was surprised that the link in 260 was actually to an article about how to build a computer, and not to an article calling people who build their own computer wankers or assholes or some such.
If it helps, wd, the instructions in th elinked article won't actually work. The author is a jerkass.
Build your own desktop or find someone who can, it'll be cheaper and better.
Hey w-lfs-n, how/where did you learn to do this? Any books/websites/etc. you'd recommend?
Also, just want to report that the comments windows now "jump to the front" once they finish loading (i.e. they don't stay behind the window I'm currently reading, but instead thrust themselves rudely to the top of the pile). They didn't do that before. Was this an intentional change?
Hey w-lfs-n, how/where did you learn to do this? Any books/websites/etc. you'd recommend?
I went the "find someone who can" route, actually. Some web shop, now absorbed into another company; they present you with a list of components such that things will actually work when put together (so you don't have to worry about the motherboard having a socket that won't accomodate the cpu, eg). Worked well. They provided the case and cooling components, too. (Not free of charge or anything, but I didn't pick those out.)
