Your mother and I are carrying on like a couple of juvenile delinquents

[vovat]

Okay, I might as well post this now.

bethje and I watched two movies this week. On Tuesday, we saw Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, the sequel to a Canadian werewolf movie that we saw a few months ago. I liked it, but I don't really have anything specific to say about it. I will say that it seemed less complicated than the first one, being fairly narrow in its focus. The third movie, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is next on our Netflix queue, so we should be watching that soon.

Last night, we saw Word Wars, which is a documentary about participants in Scrabble tournaments. Some of them seemed to have no real life beyond Scrabble, with no real jobs or anything. One guy seemed to do nothing but smoke pot and play Scrabble. Another one took a whole bunch of medicines that were supposed to increase his brainpower. There was a comment from a woman about how Scrabble is more mathematical than linguistic, since the definitions of words aren't important. This makes sense, but some of the tournament participants were really good with definitions as well. There was a lot about how important it is to be able to figure out anagrams (and all there were anagrams for the names of all of the cities visited, which was a cool touch). I can sometimes figure out things like that, if given enough time, but I don't think I could ever do it on the fly like the guys in the film did. I also couldn't imagine being that competitive about anything. I've never really been much one playing Scrabble anyway. My dad used to play it a lot, though, and even has the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, which was featured quite a bit in the movie.

Today on the radio, I heard about how they're banning peanut butter jars in prisons in Tennessee, because people smuggle contraband (including cell phones, bullets, and drugs) in them. They also mentioned that they've cloned a horse. I think there might have been something else I wanted to mention, but I forget what it was. I DO, however, remember another thing that I heard on the radio a week or two ago, and wanted to write about but forgot. Apparently, the guy who made Supersize Me spoke at a school, and got in trouble for using profanity and insulting minority workers at McDonald's. I wonder what he actually said. I was inclined not to like the guy much anyway. I mean, come on! Eating nothing but McDonald's for a month is essentially a circus sideshow act, not a reputable scientific study. I haven't actually seen the film, and I think some people on my friends list liked it, but the descriptions make it sound preachy and obvious.

A new They Might Be Giants podcast is now up. "Diving Board" is another one of those cool John Linnell songs about mundane topics that seem to be par for the course in these podcasts. "Lesson 16" is pretty amusing. "Words Are Like" is a good song that I already knew. It's interesting that they credit it to "They Might Be Giants," rather than the Crummer Family (the fake band name under which they originally released it). It's kind of weird, because I was just thinking of that song yesterday when watching Word Wars (since, you know, it has "words" in the title). I'm not sure I've ever heard of Michael Levine, but the song of his that's featured is pretty good, and it's nice to hear a non-TMBG artist in the podcast. And I love the old political songs that they often include in these things. I give Podcast 5B two thumbs up! Or I would if I were Roger Ebert, but then I would have hated UHF and thought Caligula was one of the worst movies ever made.

Speaking of TMBG, I heard that Dial-A-Song was working for a brief period of time a few days ago, but now it's down again. Why must the Johns and their unreliable technology taunt us so?

I guess I should get some food now.

Comments

[goose-gumshoe.livejournal.com]

wow, that was friggin delicious. its nice to read a post thats not just about bullshit with content and eloquently succint.

[loz]

I'm terrible at Scrabble - really, really bad. I always feel completely inferior when I play. I never get the right letters.

Of course, my family refuse to allow the rare words like "Ee" which are allowed in competition. I'm sure I'd do much better if I were allowed to let off an "Ee" every now and then.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think that's the first time anyone has ever called one of my posts "succint." {g} Anyway, thanks.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The film mentions that, in tournament play, you can challenge a word that you don't think is valid. If you're right, the other person loses a turn. If you're wrong, you lose a turn.

What does "ee" mean, anyway? I assume it's not the lost city on the Discworld, since that's both a proper noun AND fictional. {g}

[obsessical.livejournal.com]

i only know that "ai" is a two-toed sloth.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Is that what you get when you can't afford the three-toed variety? {g}