bitterisataste . . . words and ramblings . . . v.6.0

Sunday, June 06, 2004

this entry brought to you by the white stripes, "offend in every way"

THE GOOD

Starting up a new site There's kind of a mixed feeling with this new version of words and ramblings. On the one hand, it's nice to be writing again. It's nice to know that all the things that have been going through my head over the past few months that I've wanted to write about will finally have an outlet. On the other hand, with my work schedule, and taking care of Celest and all the things that come with growing up, since I've had such a long break, I'm afraid I won't be able to get myself back into that daily regimen that I used to so religiously stick to. I'm afraid that, mentally, I just won't be able to keep up like previously. For example, I haven't written a line of code for the design of the blogger, and I want to redesign the main site at bitterisataste.com, but will I be able to muster up the enthusiasm like I once could? In many ways, I really am starting off fresh again, even though I really don't want to be, and yet I don't feel like I'll be able to get back on track this page being how it was in its prior life. On the other hand, now I can continue making fun of George W. Bush on a global scale instead of just with my wife and coworkers.

John Kerry Speaking of President Bush, if John Kerry doesn't win the up-coming election, I'm going to cry. And I'm not just saying that to be hyperbolic, I mean literally, tears will erupt from my eyes, and over the next four years I will be stuck in an unmovable, sucking, black cloud of damnation and despair. That is, of course, assuming the UnPresident doesn't figure out some horrible, unthinkable way of keeping himself in the White House indefinitely, which he undoubtedly will. And in that case, I'll move to Canada. That way I can buy lots of weed and put myself in a giggly, uncaring haze, so the unspeakable acts that commence forth for the rest of eternity won't have an effect on me. And I really, really don't like weed, so I'm praying against all hopes Kerry wins.

Jackie Brown I've seen Kill Bill now (I don't know whether I'll give it a full review later on or talk about it in next week's Polarity), and going back and seeing Jackie Brown again was really an interesting comparison. Brown is neither as manic and geeky as Bill, nor as preoccupied with making its characters and dialogue as memorable as Pulp Fiction. Tarantino geeks might use this to say that Jackie is the weakest of his movies, but its subtlety and finesse make it a stand-out. Comparing it to his other films, it's definitely the odd fox out, but that's part of what makes it so damned good. Whereas both Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill almost seem as if they have to prove how cool they are, Jackie just is cool.

Celestial Dawn, our baby While I promised yesterday that I wouldn't go by, day to day, gushing about my daughter, I don't think that an occasional update would be out of the question, especially considering regular readers haven't heard anything about her in literally months. The only news of note, other than her talking a lot more (it's just been recently that she's started saying "no", which I definitely think is a good thing considering she said "yes" and "good" way before she said "no", except than when she says "no" she has to shout it), is that she's going to day care now a few times a week. She seems to be getting along very well there-- every time I go to pick her up, she's always dancing and running around and having a little too much fun. Ah, to be a kid again.

Glad Press N' Seal Wrap Have you tried this stuff? I don't normally think of myself as much of a consumer whore, but lets face it, give me a gadget-- and don't fool yourself, top-of-the-line plastic wrap is as much a gadget as anything else-- and I roll around in hog heaven. Press N' Seal will revolutionize the way you use plastic wrap. I mean, when was the last time you Saran Wrapped soup and could turn it upside down without a rubber band around it, and the soup didn't fall out? If Glad Press N' Seal Wrap were a woman, I'd want to see her in a porno. Or at least a steamy "art" movie.

THE BAD

Scribble.Nu There used to be this weblog server called scribble. And it was good. It did everything I wanted it to do. It was comfy, it was user friendly, and so what if the majority of the user base was half retarded? It did everything I wanted it to do. Then, starting around 2003, it started going down. A lot. And I don't just mean a day here and there, I'm talking for weeks at a time. Weeks. And since, I don't know, February, it's gone down and hasn't come back up. It looks as if it never will. The problem? I'd written over 980 entries on that thing that I did not want to move to another server. Worse, I didn't even get a chance to back up the last hundred something entries-- which was entirely my fault, but I wouldn't have had to back up my entries if they'd gave us a heads up, like, "Hey kids, looks like we'll soon not be existing, better get your shit together while you have a chance." The reason it's taken me so long to get a new site up and running is because, honestly, none of the sites really satisfy me in the right way. So I'm really compromising with blogger, as I would have with any other site. And I'm still bitter about the whole thing.

Coachella You know, it's almost a good thing that this page didn't exist over the past several months, because week to week you would've read my excitedness over the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in the weekly Polarities, only for it to hit an anti-climax. See, we'd heard about the Festival back in February and started planning it, and as the weeks went by, it seemed more and more possible that we could do it. We had to do it. Radiohead was playing-- tickets were 75 dollars per day, with over 100 bands playing both days. I'd pay 75 bucks to see Radiohead alone. The Flaming Lips were playing. The Pixies, The Cure, Stereolab, Le Tigre. We went through a downloading frenzy, and over the past several months our music listening habits utterly changed. We bought CDs by The Black Keys, Electric Six, Postal Service, Desert Sessions, Cooper Temple Clause, International Noise Conspiracy, Trail of Dead, Howie Day, and several others, as well as downloaded hundreds of MP3s, music we would've never been exposed to if it hadn't been for our anticipation for Coachella. We were hyped, and it looked as if everything was going to go down nice and smooth. All we needed was to wait for the car registration to show up so we could cross the state line. And then, a full week before opening day, the tickets sell out. What the hell kind of festival sells out? Well, apparently I know the answer now: a really, really good one sells out. I can't tell you how disappointed we were. "But Chris!" I hear you saying. "Why didn't you just buy tickets as soon as you had the money?" Because we have a kid and a very old car. We needed to make sure everything was worked out before we threw 150 down the drain, only to learn we couldn't go. I'd honestly have preferred it if we couldn't have gone because of something like that, because at least we tried. But tickets selling out? Didn't see that one coming. Excuse me while I go cry in my closet.

Jessica Simpson Goddammit, but I'm tired of seeing this untalented, horse-toothed freak on every fucking magazine cover in America. What's funny is, I don't know a single person who isn't instantly annoyed by the very sight of her. I don't understand how someone this universally disliked could possibly be this ubiquitous. She's like Fidel Freaking Castro, only with an impossibly annoying reality TV show that just got renewed for a second season. And Fidel Castro is better looking.

Identity It's not that I hated it, but it's been a while since I've seen a movie that tried so desperately hard to be psychologically thrilling and subtle, while not being very psychological, thrilling, or subtle. The filmmakers are supposing that you won't be paying close enough attention to the opening two minutes that you'll miss the fact that they give away the ending at the very beginning, but they don't give the audience enough credit: twist endings are so common place nowadays that if a movie opens with several doctors talking about delusional mental illnesses, you already know what the twist is going to be as the movie goes through its overly obvious pacings. Further, the movie makes the bad decision of going on for ten minutes or so after the cat's out of the bag and the twist is revealed-- at that point, you're not surprised at what's happening, nor do you care. Ultimately, this movie had an interesting idea that was mired by the filmmakers assuming the audience had either never seen a psychological thriller before, or were idiots. And it's sad, because the directing is otherwise very well paced and the acting much better than movies of this sort tend to be, with a grade A cast (including John Cusack and Ray Liotta) and a script rich with character.

Usher's new song featuring Lil' Jon Am I the only human being that thinks a man sweetly cooing about getting his ex-girlfriend back while another man randomly shouts "YEAH!" and "OKAAAAY!" in the background is about the dumbest fucking thing in the entire world? And this isn't the only song that suffers from this, either. There's some other R&B song on the radio right now, I don't remember who it's by, but it features that fucking useless mongoloid shouting "OKAY!" to an utterly inappropriate song. Folks, somewhere out there exists a small group of people profitting by making music of two-- sometimes three-- completely disparate elements that have nothing to do with one another, mixing them, and profitting.
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with love from CRS @ 4:18 PM

Sunday, June 06, 2004

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