Sometimes, Melissa runs her legs. Sometimes, she runs her mouth.

Month: July 2009 (Page 1 of 2)

Alice in Wonderland

Look it’s the trailer for the new live action Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton. I am excited about this movie. The art direction looks amazing. Johnny Depp is the Had Hatter. Anne Hathaway is the White Queen. Helena Bonham Carter is the Red Queen. Here are some stills from the movie.

TWEET!

WORK WORK WORK WORK

So much work I missed out on the french movie I wanted to see. Now I get to wait for it to be released on Netflix

AND

I attended the LR Tweet up. I didn’t take pictures. I was too busy mingling. Other people took pictures and a good bunch are over on Lance Turner’s Blog..

Over 70 people RSVPed and there were quite a few there. The room that was originally reserved for the event was too small and the people managed to take over the entire bar area.

I’d give more details but I don’t want to end up in the trunk of a car. You’ll just have to come to the next one.

Thoughts of the day at the end of the day.

This was in Conway today. Conway is town where my alma mater is located. On more than one occasion, I remember sitting in the hallway of the first floor in the dorm waiting for a tornado watch/warning to let up. It’s an awesome video. The conversation between the two people who are watching this while one is filming is pretty classic.

I took one of those cheesy “which Greek Goddess are you?” quizzes and got Hecate. I’ve never heard of her. Obviously, my education on the Greek Gods and Goddess is sorely lacking. Fascinating though.

For all your personal injury attorneys, the ambulance chaser t-shirt.

This is the video of Arkansas Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue after his speech to the Arkansas Political Animals Club. He gave a lot of football metaphors and called the Hogs. I love the attempt to ingratiate himself with the locals by calling the Hogs. I can understand the theory on why you pay the lottery people so much; (It’s a specialized set of information and to set up one from scratch requires a level of expertise that should be compensated) BUT WHY!!!! is the security detail (a former Arkansas sheriff) getting paid six figures? Is he supposed to follow the director around 24/7?

The best part about Tolbert’s video is the female reporter making faces. She obviously forgot that people could see her. OH MY!

early morning Tuesday

It’s 1:08 on Tuesday morning. So yeah I’m up late. I have some low level allergies that messes with my head which messes with my sleep schedule. I’ve also been busy at work and life.

  1. I won something that I thought I’d lose. It’s always a pleasant surprise when you find out that you have underestimated your abilities. Or heck, pleasant surprise when you have just lucked out!
  2. I finally replaced my Nike + iPod. This made me happier than being the next contestant on the Price is Right.
  3. I am excited about seeing this movie: Summer House. Both Blake Rutherford and Jennybee liked it. Both of them like fancy pants movies. They saw it on the same day at the same theater. They may have even seen it at the same time. NO, as far as I know, they don’t know each other.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

yes America, I went and saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I read the book back in the day but I haven’t reread it since. I do, however, remember quite a bit of the plot. Let’s say that I remember enough to know what was going to happen but not enough to get pissy about the things left out.

This is the movie that starts right after the confrontation between Harry and he who must not be named himself Voldemort in the Goblet of Fire. Harry hangs out at the Weasleys. They start school and Malfoy looks like he’s up to no good. This time, it looks like he’s really really up to no good. What is he doing? Also, the whole gang has discovered the opposite sex and crushes abound. This is Harry Potter: teen angst version.

This movie is darker than the previous Potter films, as it should be. Dumbledore asks Harry to get close to the new potions teacher to find out some dirt on a former student. Dumbledore is away on his own doings trying to take down the death eaters. There are mysterious conversations regarding Snape.

So. The movie is quite a fun ride. Some of the plot lines in the book were more subtle than the movie version especially the romantic plot lines of Ron, Hermoine, and Harry.

Public Enemies

I saw Public Enemies.

I guess I should say some things at the outset. I am a big fan of Art Deco. I love Art Deco buildings and other Depression era buildings. You can see them all over the East coast. Also, I love men in suits. The Sartorialist is a favorite “read.”

This movie is, of course, about John Dillinger and his eventually shooting in front of the Biograph theater. It has every attractive actor who is known for doing “independent” and “quirky” movies starring in it.

It’s well acted and has a nice pace with the action. For a movie that is based on real life events and one in which you know what is going to happen, there was still some suspense. The camera work was a little dizzy. It reminded me of the Bourne Identity and The Blair Witch Project at times where the camera just seemed to be flying everywhere. The art direct and sets were very realistic. If you look at footage from the news reels about Dillinger at the time, you can see that a lot of care was put into making the details realistic and as close to the actual events as possible, except all the actors are eye candy.

Away We Go

I finally got around to seeing Away We Go.

God I loved this movie.

It’s one of the most real love stories I have ever seen on film. Yeah, the characters say silly things but the issues and the relationship between the two main characters rings so true.

And there’s a comfortable stillness between the two main characters. It feels like they have known each other forever and don’t need to fill the uncomfortable silences with any noises. More precisely, they’ve known each other for so long and know each other so well that there are no uncomfortable silences, just the ability to sit in each other’s space and just be.

*sniff*

damn.

Free association time: the last couple of days

RUN RUN RUN
NO idea how far I’ve gone
Dead Nike Ipod censor.
Rest in peace.
Running nowhere and no idea how far.
My kitty shredded my leg.
Work gave me a headache.
Slept it away.
Nike sensor known for having poor battery life.
PFFT. Ripped off or is 20 bucks every year or six months a good thing?\
SYFY = STU-PID!
Dandy Warhols= new album
Wilco=new album
Michael Jackson dead so no new album.
Oh who am I kidding? Greatest hits and unreleased crap albums in the works.
North Korea tested some missiles while everybody was distracted with Jackson
Palin still kooky. Shows her kookiness.
Apparently from all the twitter followers who unfollow after my Palin bitching, she’s still loved somewhere.

Sarah Palin has left the building

I heard about Sarah Palin resigning from her post as governor of Alaska in the same way that many people did: Twitter

I tried calling my friend Ang and got a voice mail so I texted her. “Palin’s out. Thoughts?”

She calls me later.

“WHAT HAPPENED?”
“I don’t know. She resigned.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah I know.”
“Somebody must have some dirt on her.”
“Did she say why?”
“She gave a statement but even the pundits are saying they still have no idea what she was saying.”

So I ended up going to Ang’s house and we found the video on the internet.

LORD! I do believe that Sarah Palin has lost her mind! The woman sounds like she’s about to cry or hyperventilate with all that gasping for air. Somehow she’s talking about Kosovo, her son Trig, and energy in the same speech.

I then found out about the Vanity Fair article. and found her written version of the speech on her website.

Now a hint on why she quit was this paragraph

Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions.

Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We’ve won! But it hasn’t been cheap – the State has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money not going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn’t cost them a dime so they’re not going to stop draining public resources – spending other peoples’ money in their game.

Honey, if you had really read “ALL” the newspapers, you would have been able to predict that something like this would happen based on the Clinton years. Remember the Clinton years. Since the 90s, the Clintons have been accused of all sorts of ethics violations and other wrongdoings like “White Water,” “Travel Gate” “Mena Airport” “Paula Jones sexual harassment trial,” “Murdering Vince Foster” … and oh yeah… “doing dirty deeds with Monica Lewinsky and lying about it”

So how many of them turned out to be true? Only the last one.

So how can she or anybody else be surprised at how Ms. Palin was treated? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The whole vetting process that keeps being mentioned in the news is done for the sole reason that everybody and their mama knows that the minute someone hits the national stage, some investigative journalists will descend on the hometown like a swarm of locusts looking in every dog house, hen house, state house, out house, and governor’s mansion to find dirt or even something dark brown that can resemble dirt if held up to the light just right.

So honey, if you were surprised at how you were treated, the only person you have to blame is yourself.

So for Ms. Palin to get all up on her podium and talk about politics as usual and blood sports after accusing Barack Obama of being friends with terrorists and given tacit approval through her silence when people in the audience shouted “kill him” and going on and on about how he isn’t a real American. Bloodsport. “kill terrorist”

Oh honey. This is the part where you wink at the camera again like you’re shitting me, isn’t it? Am I being PUNK’d? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So she’s gone and I’ll wonder but not too much. I figure someone else will find out something or they won’t.

The Declaration of Independence –Happy 4th.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

(This was written by Thomas Jefferson. There, I haven’t plagarized)

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