I think the balance has shifted again, I think I’m going back to Firefox as my default browser.
The add-ons are amazing. Mozilla as a platform for new ideas simply rules ( from a user perspective )
I always liked type-ahead find, an emacs thing that I think should be everywhere
The render time isn’t notably better on Safari anymore
Safari keeps barfing on the JavaScript on my netflix queue. I visit that thing often enough that barfing on the site and taking out my browser state is a major problem.
The issue that ruins my Firefox experience when i’m forced to use a PC experience, memory leaks, doesn’t seem to be a problem on OSX.
Here’s something from the embarrassed and ashamed section of my Netflix queue.
We’re watching the “Degrassi High” series and there’s nothing like hearing the endless litany of “Suurries” and seeing Amanda “Spike” Stepto’s beautiful haircut.
What can I say about “Degrassi”?
For some of us growing up in Jesusland there were a lot of questions that didn’t get answered questions that, well, concern hormones, and girls, and, uhm, Kotex. To be fair, it’s not because my parents were prudish, religious, or too–embarrassed to talk, but there are some things you just want to not to have to ask about.
“Degrassi” provided that outlet, or input.
In the first episode we deal with the topics of:
Abortion
Pregnancy Test
Teen pregnancy
Periods
In other episodes we cover:
Handicap accessibility
Breaking up
“Just Being Friends”
Abusive friends
The utter baloney of content in girl magazines
in a realistic, sensible, neutral way. The dialog, while delivered through a lens woodenly, is legitimate dialogue through the issues: Pro is given, con is given, traditional is given, moderate is given, and the characters make a decision that, while you may disagree with it, is understandable.
Instead of the topics being over–emotionally they’re dealt with in a polite and, well, Canadian manner ( “please, thank–you, and sourrey”)—even the girlfriend-batterer say “could I please speak with you” before the beating commences.
Footnote:
1. This is a pale, weak version, in text, to capture the Canadian accent’s infamous “sorry”.
Lauren and I just finished watching the turn–of–the–decade camp–comedy “But I’m a Cheerleader” starring Natasha Lyonne and featuring roles by RuPaul ( as a man ) and Bud Cort ( aka “Harold” ).
This song is an amusing interpretation of Gainsbourg’s “Laisse tomber les filles” (literally, Allow the girls to drop or “Quit the girls” - so an excellent translation by March ) as recorded by yé-yé chanteuse France Gall:
The bass–line is infectious and definitely writhes like Jack Marshall’s “Munsters Theme”. It just screams out “go–go boots, 20–year–old ingenues and two–count–step.”
“Laisse tomber les filles” was written by Gallic naughty–fellow Serge Gainsbourg ( what, in the ’60’s in France wasn’t? ). Serge’s prolific work ranges from an early herald of “world music”, a great horns arranger, and a writer of not–so–thinly–veiled entendre for ever–so–corruptible girls—most “scandalously” his own daughter, Charlotte.
I thought that the whole “Saw” turn in the writing ( difficult moral conundrums ) was an unusual turn, but it served very well to highlight the
trouble with being a masked vigilate ( until March, 2009 when “Watchmen” will give the final word ).
I love Chris Nolan’s direction: he really seems to be the heir to the Hitchcock–style of suspense.
The movie is also very much a product of its times questions of how much humanity do you sacrifice ( torture, invasion of privacy ) of the things that made you once great in the name of preserving that state—at what point do you lose it in pursuit of protecting it ( any bells ringing? ).
“Iron Man”, “Wall-E”, and now “The Dark Knight” it’s been a good summer for movies.
Greeting any new Leaguers while The League is away
I am a huge “This American Life” fan. Last year, for my birthday, The Leagues’ bought me an iTunes gift card which I promptly spent on TAL episodes. I got into it when I first moved to CA. Not knowing many people, having those stories there late on Saturday night became part of a ritual that helped me transition to living there.
My absolute favorite episode is #74 “Conventions”. The first segment ( or, “act”, according to show host Ira Glass ) introduces John Connors, a man from the midwest who goes to New York City for a weekend to celebrate “Dark Shadows”.
“Dark Shadows” is the Gothic–themed soap opera that showed on ABC in the late– 60’s: it’s pacing is nothing short than glacial, the production value is iffy, and the egregious use of the Theremin might be against the Geneva Conventions.
At the end of the convention, Conners feels “Dark Shadows”–fatigue and seems to be experiencing slight embarrassment while relating a story about a woman who, in the convention hall, before a panel of DS cast, bellowed:
“‘Dark Shadows’ Rules!”
Conners seems to have felt the shame that only a true fan of something cultish can experience. You’re shamed by the action of the other fan, but you’re also a bit shamed because the zeal of that fandom exists in you, although maybe not in dictum–bellowing grandiosity.
In the end, Glass gives Conners a chance to say on the radio “‘Dark Shadows’ rules”. Laughing, with a hint of shame, and very quietly, he says it.
I think this explains the way we all feel about our guilty pleasures that we obsess about.
“Danielle Steel rules!” or “WWE rules” or back in 18th England: “roman’s rule!”
I have felt this way about my love of Rush for many years. There’s a huge fan-base for the Canadian power-trio but most of our lives we live in the closet, but upon finding one another, there’s the immediate understanding.
the unbelievable bass breakdown to the slapback-effects laden “Free Will”, the poetic allegory of “The Trees”, or the master’s essay in Moog known as the record Signals? Much less to a pretty girl?
In the utterance of “Rush Rules” to end them all, enters the pean by one Stephen Colbert:
Recently I discovered that fellow Leaguer and former resident of the Hall of Justice itself, Nicole, has an aptitude for sythesizer. How totally awesome would it be if sweet, petite, gently sweet-Texlahoma-lilt-voiced Nicole were to get up behind an ersatz wood–paneled Moog and rock the socks out of the synthesizer-solo of “Tom Sawyer”? Equally acceptable would be the synth denouement out of “YYZ ( that’s Why-Why-Zed for the uninitiated )”
Although, playing that synth solo may be the synth crowd’s version of walking into Guitar Center and playing “Stairway”.
Rush fandom is a weird thing, but it’s oddly virulent. Even my Sublime-n-Sunshine SoCal girlfriend, of late, under the sway of the Teutonic Thunder drumming of Neal Peart has confessed that she has the sneaky suspicion that what I’ve known for many years may be true:
Friend mike sent in this winner as “Worst Fight Scene Ever”.=
The one that really sticks out in my mind is, why does the bad guy ( we can
tell, he’s the one with the mullet ) lick the knife before engaging our hero
( are those Z Cavaricci’s? ) in morta combat?
Is this to inspire the fear of staph infection in his opponent?
You may see my last post in which I ask, how can it be that here in Austin there is nothing to do on Sunday night?
Well, Lauren and I took a wild stab at a solution and went to the campus area’s venerable “Hole in the Wall” for “shoegaze” night. I figured it couldn’t be all that bad as I always had a bit of a think for My Bloody Valentine.
We headed down and the bar was sparsely populated. Many people were seated out in the hallway alongside and in back of the bar, sitting in the humid night air with sweating bar glasses stacking indefatigably higher.
We played a game of foosball and I got shellacked. Our pool games that came after were much more balanced but I think I ended up losing that series as well.
Eventually the first band came on and sure enough, they were latter–day disciples drunk from the fountain of St. Greenwood.
This morning I got up and watched the ending of “Shine”, the movie that gives you way-too-many opportunities to view Captain Barbaossa’s butt. I thought the pivotal scene of the Rachmaninoff 3 concerto was absolutely astounding. The emotional scenes between young Noah Taylor and Armin Mueller-Stahl are among the most wrenching put to film.
Is it just me or is this town entirely dead after 7pm on Sunday?
This is the nth time in recent memory that Lauren and I looked at austinist, do512, and the chronicle for something to do besides sit at home, eat more mexican food, or watch netflix on a Sunday night and have come up empty.
Seriously, the only thing that sounds remotely good is Shoegaze night at the hole-in-the-wall.
As bad as it may be, rest you assured that it’s better than Sunnyvale, but still…that’s not setting the bar very high.
