The Penultimate Genius

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Saturday, December 19, 2009

What I'm Doing on "Snow Day"

Circulating on the Interwebs lately is this seven part deconstruction of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Hilarious. Accurate. I hated that movie and the other two new episodes. Almost ruined the franchise for me, and, lemme tell you, the Ewoks nearly ruined the franchise for me.

Watch:



I'd track down the link to the post I wrote years ago about how Star Wars will be made right by some other director/producer in the future after Lucas dies, but I'm spending "snow day" (today) drinking Bloody Mary's with the wife and neglecting the children. That's me.You, you can use the search feature at the top of the page to try to track it down. If I still had archives, that might be easier, but you can thank Google for killing my archives when it bought Blogger from Pyra Labs all those years ago.

Me? Meh. I don't care. Archives? Who needs 'em?

Labels: Filler Material

William Young 3:13 PM # 0 comments
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The Green Hell

I found this article to be hilarious. I have no idea why a certain percentage of humans think modernity is distasteful, and that we should live as some other type of animal and not "despoil" the planet. Oddly, no eco warrior ever lives like this, or tries to. Curiously, no greenie ever flees the city to live in a hemp teepee and forage for food.

This says something about these types of people, no? Why do they prefer to live in modern cities and drink decaf no-fat faux-mocha lattes at Starbucks while using WiFi to tell the world how evil modernity is? These types could easily live the lifestyle they want to force on the rest of us if they'd just get on with it and live the lifestyle. But they won't. They never do, and this article points out this simple fact: "But it's hard to imagine many Americans ever living in an arcology, except perhaps at gunpoint. If you want to see why, just pay a visit to Arcosanti."

I'd swap out "Americans" with "humans," though. We've got no shortage of illegal aliens stealing into the country from impoverished Third World nations, and none of them are choosing to live in this idealistic archetype of the future of mankind. Curiously, they all want cell phones, fast food and cable TV. Says something about modernity, doesn't it?

Labels: Delusional Points of View, Filler Material

William Young 9:00 AM # 0 comments
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This Is What Five Minutes of Disinterested Typing Gets You

Uhh, yeah. Hi there.

Today is supposed to be the day Pool Boy and I begin finishing the reconstruction work on the Future Kitchen. Just thought you might want to know. Should take two days, he guesstimates. And, that's just to do the rough installation of the walls and ceiling.

The floor, cabinets, appliances, dry wall finishing/painting - that's all in the future. Some of it, more than a year in the future. But, still. Right now the room is a mess that embarrasses the wife. Maybe by cocktail hour Friday, it'll be a box.

Of course, there is no cocktail hour on Friday for me, there's work. Someone's gotta stand by that friggin' door.

Oh, saw Jumper the other day. Didn't completely suck. Didn't make complete sense, either, but was entertaining enough. It needed about 20 minutes more of explanation/backstory to bring it up to the level of logical understandability to qualify for willing suspension of disbelief that would have made the movie *believable.* But Rachel Bilson is hot. So, fwiw.

Labels: Filler Material, Movie Reviews

William Young 9:02 AM # 0 comments
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What Happened Yesterday

So, yesterday afternoon, the bro-law and I spent three hours fixing three leaks in my hot water heating system (more here and here). Today, I have a BRAND NEW LEAK from a pipe we didn't touch. Nuts.

What?

Labels: File Under Dept. of, Filler Material

William Young 9:13 AM # 1 comments
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Occam's Paper

You know, except for the occasional accidentally-heard bits I've not intended to listen to, I have no idea what the brouhaha is regarding golf player Tiger Woods. Car accident? Domestic incident? Dunno. DON'T CARE! And, no, I didn't read the article at the link, I just copied and pasted the url so I'd have a link to link to.

I don't care about celebrities, athletes, actors, musicians or anybody else in the world who I actually don't know in the real world. Anything I know about anybody in these categories is learned from glancing at magazine covers and the occasional bored flip-through in a dentist's office.

I mean: Johnny Depp is the "sexiest man alive?" Really? Again? What criteria does People magazine use to determine this? Oh, sure, a bunch of editrixes sit around an office drinking Starbuck's specialty coffees and think out-loud about which celebrity they'd most like to bang that year, just because. And do I care that he's doing a sex scene in a now-filming movie with Angelina Jolie and worry about the implications of that acting-moment with her for-now boyfriend Brad Pitt? No, I do not, but it was on the cover of a magazine, and now I know about it.

Indeed, I picked up a book at work the other night by a "celebrity couple" about how to become a (D-List) celebrity hounded by the paparazzi. I read the first paragraph, and when they said I already knew who they were or I wouldn't be reading the book, I though, "I have flippin' clue who you two are and thought you might tell me in the first paragraph of your book, but you didn't, so now I'm putting your book back on the shelf." I mean, really, "celebrity" in the modern Western era is kinda lame. On the one hand, anybody can be famous for no actual reason other than the media decides to make you famous; on the other hand, fame is so niche-focused anymore that, say, hip-hop artist "50 Cent" could be standing next to me in line at the mall for a Starbucks specialty coffee and I wouldn't know he was "world famous" hip-hop artist "50 Cent."

But it gets worse: I wouldn't recognize any "famous" athletes from the NHL, NBA or MLB. Or NASCAR (except maybe Jeff Gordon, who was on a local commercial for an Amish-y restaurant/market nearby).

Hell, I wouldn't recognize by name/face ANY of the local Philadelphia television news anchors/reporters. None. Don't watch 'em.

So ... if there was a point to this post, I guess that's it: I am unimpressed and uninterested in "celebrities." As my co-worker Sam once said, "They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like me and you." Also, I'd guess they each have a brand-preference for toilet paper. If that there doesn't level the playing ground, I don't know what else does.

Me? I like Charmin Ultra-Soft.

Labels: Delusional Points of View, Desperate Posts for Blog Traffic, Filler Material

William Young 9:46 AM # 0 comments
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This Is The End, My Only Friend, The End

Well, there being no evidence that I live an actual interesting life worth posting about with any frequency, it looks like I've pretty much given up posting intermittently.

(Taps on monitor glass)

Hello? Hello? Anybody on the other side?

Labels: Not Necessarily the Last Post

William Young 10:42 AM # 2 comments
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And Then There Was This Post...

I dunno how it came to be, but over the course of the last six years or so, both of our cars are due for inspection the same month. This year, both are cars are due this month. Or, were due, since they're both done as of yesterday. Over the last few years, this has meant that whatever month the cars came due was always a HUGE month for car repairs. We got soaked for $2K three or four years back, and last year, you'll remember, our mechanic gave a pre-mortem to the Toyota Avalon, telling us it would be a waste of money for him to inspect it, since it clearly needed thousands of dollars in repairs.

You may remember that the Avalon died that very same night. I spent the next six months walking everywhere.

So, this year, somehow, both new-to-us cars needed inspected in October, and I took 'em down to Dutch's repair shop per custom. The 2006 Suburban needed rear brakes, so that cost a couple hundred right there, but everything else checked out fine. Whew. A couple hundred I can deal with, a couple thousand I can't.

Took the 1994 Sable in yesterday, a car with eleventy thousand miles on it, a bashed-in side door, questionable heating/cooling system, fidgety turn-lights and a brand-new stereo. So, I was worried. It needed a light bulb and a windshield wiper blade to pass inspection. Whew!

So. Hmm. I guess I got nuthin'. Hasta kemosabe!

Labels: normal blatheration

William Young 11:26 AM # 0 comments
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"The Only Way Out Is Through"