Ha! I Kill Me!
Dec. 8th, 2018 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatIt's been over a month since I lasted posted here, but since I had a few things to say that weren't really topic-specific, I figure it's time for an update. Beth's birthday and my birthday were both last month, and we met with both of my parents for dinner at different times around then. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Beth's mom's house. We recently took Reagan to the vet because her face was getting worse, and apparently she's allergic to dust mites. Before the test results came back, we got a few days' worth of pills and liquid. We've been giving it to her with a little bit of canned food, and she's been eating it with no trouble. The problem is that now she's gotten used to it, and will probably get upset when we stop giving that to her. This morning, she woke Beth at the time when we'd been giving her the medicine.
This past Wednesday, we saw Kevin Geeks Out at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was the first one since the last time I posted to Dreamwidth, and Kevin Maher isn't sure when the next one will be. The show was Christmas-themed, and presenters discussed such pop culture oddities as the ALF Christmas special that had the snarky cat-eating alien befriending a terminally ill girl and talking Cleavon Little out of suicide.
"Where the white Santas at?"
I remember ALF as being a pretty dull show overall. It was like they wrote the other characters (who were called the Tanners, just like on Full House) as being totally boring to make ALF himself seem entertaining in comparison, even though he really wasn't really all that outrageous anyway. He's an alien who speaks English, makes references to things on Earth, and, as the presenter pointed out, makes jokes like an old Catskills comedian. So that basically just leaves us with the really dark cat-eating jokes. Maybe they're supposed to be a metaphor as he's trying to fill the same basic cultural niche as Garfield: furry, heavily merchandised, mildly sarcastic, and living with a neurotic dork.
I understand he's still popular in Germany, though. Another presentation discussed the 1966 film The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, which had a plot about Santa Claus facing eviction by his nasty landlord for not paying his rent, and a lot of rather lazily written songs. There was a bit on the meaning of Christmas as seen through television specials, mentioning how A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first popular one to bring Jesus into it, and how both a Davey and Goliath episode and something called Christmas Is repeated so many of the elements from the Peanuts special. The edited film this time was A Very Brady Christmas, which I wrote about last year.
I'd been wanting to write a bit about Tumblr's nudity ban, but it's difficult to do that without just sounding like a pervert. I've seen articles about how it was a good promotional tool for models, how it was more positive than dedicated porn sites, and how it worked well for the LGBT community. I'm sure these are all true, but I think what I liked about it was how it was a little bit of everything. Yes, there was nudity, but that was in combination with cute animals, original and classic art, comics, jokes, video games, politics, and more. I think I was heavily influenced by SamuraiFrog, who saw the platform as a scrapbook for whatever came up or came to mind. That, and I have to say I'm kind of jealous of people who are casual about sexuality, as I'm just far too awkward to be like that myself. Then again, I think some people fake or exaggerate that kind of attitude.
And so I don't end with the nudity thing, I'll mention that Beth and I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today. There's obviously not much in bloom at this time of year, and some parts were totally closed off, but it was still quite pretty.
This past Wednesday, we saw Kevin Geeks Out at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was the first one since the last time I posted to Dreamwidth, and Kevin Maher isn't sure when the next one will be. The show was Christmas-themed, and presenters discussed such pop culture oddities as the ALF Christmas special that had the snarky cat-eating alien befriending a terminally ill girl and talking Cleavon Little out of suicide.
"Where the white Santas at?"
I remember ALF as being a pretty dull show overall. It was like they wrote the other characters (who were called the Tanners, just like on Full House) as being totally boring to make ALF himself seem entertaining in comparison, even though he really wasn't really all that outrageous anyway. He's an alien who speaks English, makes references to things on Earth, and, as the presenter pointed out, makes jokes like an old Catskills comedian. So that basically just leaves us with the really dark cat-eating jokes. Maybe they're supposed to be a metaphor as he's trying to fill the same basic cultural niche as Garfield: furry, heavily merchandised, mildly sarcastic, and living with a neurotic dork.
I understand he's still popular in Germany, though. Another presentation discussed the 1966 film The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, which had a plot about Santa Claus facing eviction by his nasty landlord for not paying his rent, and a lot of rather lazily written songs. There was a bit on the meaning of Christmas as seen through television specials, mentioning how A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first popular one to bring Jesus into it, and how both a Davey and Goliath episode and something called Christmas Is repeated so many of the elements from the Peanuts special. The edited film this time was A Very Brady Christmas, which I wrote about last year.
I'd been wanting to write a bit about Tumblr's nudity ban, but it's difficult to do that without just sounding like a pervert. I've seen articles about how it was a good promotional tool for models, how it was more positive than dedicated porn sites, and how it worked well for the LGBT community. I'm sure these are all true, but I think what I liked about it was how it was a little bit of everything. Yes, there was nudity, but that was in combination with cute animals, original and classic art, comics, jokes, video games, politics, and more. I think I was heavily influenced by SamuraiFrog, who saw the platform as a scrapbook for whatever came up or came to mind. That, and I have to say I'm kind of jealous of people who are casual about sexuality, as I'm just far too awkward to be like that myself. Then again, I think some people fake or exaggerate that kind of attitude.
And so I don't end with the nudity thing, I'll mention that Beth and I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today. There's obviously not much in bloom at this time of year, and some parts were totally closed off, but it was still quite pretty.
