The Lupus of News

Jon Stewart, doing what he does best.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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It's a little long but worth it to hang out to the end.

The best comedy IS social commentary.

Where's Homestar?

What happened to Homestar Runner? The site hasn't been updated since December, and there wasn't even a Decemberween cartoon this year. I couldn't find any news, either. Anyone know?

Finished

I finished my iPod project yesterday. I have now officially listened to every song on my iPod in alphabetical order.

Some things I've learned:

• iTunes capitalizes numbers at the end, after letters, which is the opposite of how we do it in the library.
• There are lots of songs that start with "I" and "You".
• I really gotta clean up my library- there's tons of stuff on there I don't need to have, particularly stuff I got free from iTunes.
• Time for some new music! I have a couple of CDs I haven't ripped yet, and at least two songs I want to buy.

It was a neat project, and took a lot longer than I thought- close to a year. Granted, I only listen to my iPod when I'm walking by myself or gardening, but also I don't have that many songs on it.

Now, I'm going to listen to a book for a change.

My media-verse for spring

I haven't done one of these in a few months, so I thought it might be fun. Here goes!

Music

The kids have discovered that there are other Foo Fighters albums besides Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, so we've been hearing The Color and the Shape quite a bit. (Since I love both albums, I'm not inclined to stop them from playing them, over and over and over and over...) We're waiting for our new Gnarls Barkley album to come from Amazon, so we've been playing St. Elsewhere in anticipation. (If you haven't seen their videos yet, head over to the web site now and play them. Now. I'll wait, it's ok. ... Welcome back! Wasn't that cool?) I recently took a break from audiobooks to listen to something completely different: Yo Yo Ma's Inspired by Bach. A recent post of Brenda Tremblay's reminded me that I hadn't heard that in a while.

TV

30 Rock is still the funniest thing on television, however I've found myself making time on Friday nights to watch The Soup with Joel McHale. (Booya!) Top Chef is keeping itself interesting this year, even with a good batch of chefs and no real bad guy. We powered through season 2 of Weeds on DVD; Season 3 is being released soon! We're still catching up on our Venture Brothers as well.

Movies

We haven't set foot in a movie theater in a long time, so it's all DVD and tape for us. We recently watched all 3 original Star Wars movies with the kids, and I must say, they aren't holding up to time the way most classics do. By the end of Jedi, I had the idea for a new drinking game: every time someone called someone else an "old buddy," or every time the Emperor reminded Luke that his friends (said with demonic derision) were going to die, you had to drink. You'd be so drunk you'd never even wonder how the Ewoks put up such a well-organized and well-equiped attack in the ten minutes they had to plan.

The kids are now asking to watch the three newer movies. It's not very responsible of me to play a drinking game with the kids in the room, so I'll just have to sit through them sober. I don't know how I'll manage. (Maybe episode three will save me; I heard it was better than the other two, but episode two sucked so bad I never went to see it.)

We have two grown-up movies to watch in the next week; Jamie Fox's The Kingdom, and No Country for Old Men. It will be a week of intense movie drama, to say the least.

Books

I've been ripping through books lately and I wonder if I can remember all I've read. Born Standing Up was interesting and well-written. My Horizontal Life: a Collection of One-Night Stands was popcorn and fun. I tore through Power Down, the most recent graphic novel in the Ex Machina series. The Red Tent was a fantastically well-told story from a new point of view. In Defense of Food was common sense codified, and The Year of Eating Dangerously was cute, self-deprecating food and travel writing.

I listened to His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, the Amber Spyglass and The Subtle Knife) The production was fantastic, but "disappointed" doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when I was done listening to them. "Annoyed" is close. As a family, we listened to Inkheart and are deep in Inkspell; different readers change the feeling of the characters, but the books are really good. I'm listening to Neil Gaiman's short story collection Fragile Things, which has some high points, some low points, and is beginning to run together too much. I would have rather read them one at a time in their original collections, I think.

I have several books on tap to read now: The Brief Wondrous Live of Oscar Wao is top of that list, but I'm afraid to start it. See, when the list at the library for it was so long, I picked up Junot Diaz's book of short stories Drown, and I couldn't finish it. It was brutal, both in its level of violence and its tone. I also have Predictably Irrational and The Geography of Bliss to start- I may not finish it all before it has to go back to the library.

So, that's the last couple of months of media around here. What's in your Media-verse now?

My media-verse for December

Books:

I love The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It's not what I'd call a page-turner, in that I've put it down for days several times. (Had to return it to the library, even, and wait until I reached the top of the waiting list again.) Every single page has something fascinating on it; a great, great book. I've been laughing myself silly over Dave Barry's The Shepherd, the Angel and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog and The Onion's Our Dumb World. You must read Our Dumb World's description of New Jersey- but preferably not out loud when someone's twelve year old nephew is in the room.

Graphic Novels:

Not having had a chance to go see Beowulf yet, I loved reading the Gareth Hinds version to tide me over until the DVD comes out. Hopefully over the holidays I'll have a chance to read the Preacher books I've borrowed.

Movies:

Finally saw 300 the other day, and maybe I had too high expectations for it. It was ok. a delightfully bloody and overacted comic book of a movie, but not interesting enough. We watched Elf for the first time this holiday season and it was truly "fun for the whole family." (Meet the Robinsons, however, wasn't. The kids didn't even appreciate that one. ) Sticking with Will Farrell for a moment, Stranger than Fiction is a very well-written and put-together story; an English teacher friend of mine recommended it, and it's not hard to see why. If you haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth yet, go get it immediately and watch it. At least twice. Scrooge may not be the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but singing "I Like Life" and "Thank You Very Much" always gets me in the spirit.

Television:

30 Rock is still the funniest thing on TV- and you can watch episodes online if you missed them. Please, for the sake of all of us who survived the 80s, can we get rid of Christian The One-Trick Pony on Project Runway? (Not to diminish the auffing of Steven, though- what he did to that wedding dress was a shame.)

Music:

My kids are in love with my new Foo Fighters disc Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. I'm so proud, but I'm starting to wish we didn't have to play it twice a day every day. Ah, but it's time to haul out the Christmas music, and where would be be without Eddie G?

So, what haunts your media-verse these days?

My media-verse, updated

30 Rock is the funniest thing on TV.

Watch the 1st episode of this season. There's a part of that which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on television. Ever. Including Soap.

My media-verse for October

My media-verse is about to change drastically. Yesterday, I recieved my Amazon shipment with my new Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and my new Voice of Crow, so there's my audio and literary media-verse for the next week right there.

Also, Top Chef ended last night (I didn't see it yet I was too tired to stay up I'll watch it tonight don't tell me who won lalala I can't hear you) so for TV viewing I'll stick with DVDs. We borrowed the British show Chef! and I do love it. Lenny Henry is great.

What's haunting your media-verse lately?

You know they all pretend

The new, very cool video from the Foo Fighters

My Media-verse

*Rob has challenged folks to list what's been in their media-verse lately. I'll give it a go. It's late summer and I'm clearly not into anything heavy or serious right now:

Books:

Of course, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leads the list. First I read it, then I listened to the Listening Library version. I was very happy with it. I'm listening to Eragon right now, as read by Gerard Doyle. I have a Playaway of it from the library, and I'm not enjoying it too much; I think it's the Playaway's fault- the sound quality sucks. Am waiting for A Thousand Splendid Suns at the library, and watiting for Voice of Crow to be published.

Graphic Novels:

I am reading the Y-the Last Man books. Since there are only nine compilations of those and I need a Brian K. Vaughan fix, I'm wolfing down Ex Machina too. Catching up on my Sin City as well- I haven't seen the movie yet, and plan to read most of the books first. (I can't believe I have Graphic Novels as a separate section. I blame you, Rob. I do.)

Print media:

Newsweek had a great article on the Global Warming denial machine. There's a lot of money going into confusing the public about what's actually true and what's trumped up. I read the Times of Trenton every day- or at least, go through it if I don't have a lot of time to read it. Speaking of not having enough time, I'm a little behind on my National Geographic right now.

Movies:

Finally watched Clerks 2 this past weekend and it was fun, although as full of plot holes and awkward segues as the original. I caught the Devil Wears Prada on cable this last weekend and it was awful. I read the book a few years ago and it was entertaining, but they butchered it here. (Her boyfriend works in restaurants and complains about her hours? Not believable at all.) Am on the waiting list for 300 at the library; I've borrowed Volver twice and not been able to watch it either time. I'm hoping to finagle a babysitter to see the new Bourne movie.

TV:

Morning: I've switched from Today to American Morning on CNN. I only get to watch a few minutes in the morning, and I've decided I prefer some actual news to infotainment. Primetime: we always catch Olberman if we can. Love Top Chef. Love Mythbusters. We've watched two episodes of Mad Men and I've decided that's enough- I simply don't care what happens to anyone on the show, so why bother? Strangely, I do watch this show, and I can't explain why- I just keep watching.

Music:

Very little music, it seems. I've been listening to audiobooks and am out of the loop for music. I have WXPN on right now, but it's background noise really.

So I guess that's it. What's in your Media-verse right now?

Finished it

I'm holding true to that promise not to say anything about the book.

But it's hard to keep that promise.

The Waiting

It's not here yet. I checked when I got up.

So, I made breakfast and put it in the oven. Now I'm on the computer waiting for both breakfast and my package to be delivered.

Just checked- it's still not here.

Amazon said they sent it, so it should be here soon. Just like so many people (most of them under 15 years of age, but certainly not all) I'll be on media blackout until I finish the Harry Potter book. I'm taking no chances of accidentally tripping over a spoiler.

I checked again. It's still not here.

I was hoping to get some reading done before my oldest wakes up and asks for the book; I guess we should have ordered more than one copy for the three people in this house who want to read it. We made a strict family rule about not saying one single thing about the book until we've all read it.

I just thought I heard a truck, but it's still not here.

I promise to honor that strict family rule here on the blog and give not one detail. I'll be back when I'm finished reading.

Maybe I'll go check on breakfast. Or make some coffee.

Or sit in the living room to wait for the UPS guy to show up.

Dear Hollywood Directors,

Hold the friggin' camera still.

I understand that a hand-held camera gives your movie more of an art-house feel, and judicious use of it during, say, a long chase sequence gives us the adrenaline rush of following our main character through the paces. Unfortunately, however, I just sat through an otherwise amazing film that I would have loved and raved about except for the fact that I spend half the movie noticing the camera work and feeling vaugely motion-sick. The hand-held camera is terribly, terribly overused now and unfortunately often so shakey that it looks like you strapped the camera to a poorly trained seal.

Excellent camera work should be like excellent make-up: it's so good you don't notice it.

There are devices that might help you; they're called a tri-pod or a camera dolly. I'm sure they're still in use in some movies. Please, find out what they are and start using them again.

A Tale of Two Movies

I saw two movies in the last week: An Inconvenient Truth and Grindhouse. Both movies were so remarkable that I feel I must remark on them.

Let's start with An Inconvenient Truth. I've been waiting to see this for a while, since we rarely go to movie theaters ($9.50 for a ticket- each- plus how much an hour for a babysitter? I can borrow DVDs from the library for free!) and the request queue for it was huge. Finally making it to the top of the list, we watched it last night.

This movie was everything I expected and then some. Al Gore was singularly impressive and his message even more so. The gravity of it is more than a little sobering and frightening. The sky actually is falling, and we're doing almost nothing to prop it up. It's not a liberal issue, it's not a political issue- it's a Human Problem and all humans need to act. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. No- you must. Then we all must get moving on it.

*Cool side note- the University of Delaware yesterday unveiled their new hydrogen fuel cell bus. Go Blue Hens!

*Hopeful side note- Al, run again. Please. We need you.

The second movie was Grindhouse. For this, we paid the $9.50 per ticket and bummed some free babysitting off a relative because it just wouldn't have been the same seeing it without a crowd in a theater. It was packed full on a Friday night in Edison so we ended up with rotten, crane-your-neck seats where we were stuck for three hours.

And what three hours they were. It was an assault on the senses from the first moment.

Grindhouse is a double feature. The first movie, Planet Terror, is insane. The action never really stops or barely slows down at all. Freddy Rodriquez is great in this campy, funny, gore-filled horror ride. I have never seen a better use for a missing reel, either , not ever. A go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg? How could you possibly go wrong?

Then come the previews between the movies, which were almost as bloody, if not more so. Keeps the momentum up and the laughs rolling.

The second movie, Tarrantino's Death Proof, is true to his style. He spends a long time establishing characters- way too friggin' long, in my opinion, since we're pumping adrenaline from the first movie & trailers and in no mood to listen to women talk, and talk, and talk, and establish side plotlines that have no business being there.

But once he establishes the characters, he begins the killing. Then we establish more characters, and the real joyride begins. Fear and joyride, that's what the last half hour of this movie is, and it's truly spectacular. Kurt Russell reminds us why we loved him as he has the ability to be every part of the spectrum without really changing much more than his smile. Amazing.

*Side note- I don't like horror movies. How did I end up here? And why did I enjoy it so much?

So, to sum up: Al Gore puts the fear into us, and Rodriguez and Tarrantino ratchet up the fear and gore. I highly recommend both movies, for very different reasons.