Archive for December, 2007

In Other News

I will shortly be making my glori­atial and spec­tac­ulary return to regular substantive blogging. I have much in the way of Yuletide dramatics to relate. Topics will include: The Bhutto Assassination My Sister’s Graduation My Sister’s Job Interview Families & The Holidays Gift-​​​​Giving I will also be cleaning up all these half-​​​​finished movie reviews.

The Take

This Christmas saw the addition of 53 titles to my DVD collection. Here they are: 9 to 5 A View to a Kill Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy Batman Batman Returns Blade Runner Dial M For Murder Diamonds Are Forever Die Another Day Dr. No Family Plot Foreign Correspondent For Your Eyes Only Frenzy From Russia with Love Goldeneye Goldfinger Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I Confess License to Kill Live and Let Die Marnie Moonraker Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941, d:Hitchcock) North by Northwest Octopussy On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Psycho Ratatouille Rear Window Rope Saboteur Shadow of a Doubt Stage Fright Strangers on a Train [ . . . ]

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Things What Scare Me

It is difficult for me to express exactly how much this man scares me. Not just from a political stand­point, but as a person. Even the look of him portends terrible things. Perhaps he smells of doom. It isn’t even the possi­bility, however remote, that he might be elected that scares me. A theocrat at 1600 Pennsylvania couldn’t do so much damage as, say, a theocrat at One First Street. It would still be awful, but if putting up a theo­cratic government is your goal, the Oval Office isn’t the most effective route. What is really fright­ening about Mike Huckabee is that so many people — [ . . . ]

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It’s Like Sophie’s Choice!

Warning: Project Runway spoilers ensue! Augh! For some reason, I’ve been watching Season 4 of Project Runway. I blame Flibbert, but it’s not really his fault. Last week, Chris March left. I disagreed with that choice, purely on quality-​​​​of-​​​​product grounds. I think the judges booted him because of his poor perfor­mance as leader, rather than the quality of his own work. Leader in a group challenge. A group challenge really early in the show. The second group challenge in the show. On the fourth episode. In my uned­u­cated and inex­pe­ri­enced opinion, group chal­lenges this early in the game are putting too much emphasis on inter­per­sonal dynamics and [ . . . ]

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The Amazon Dot Com

I cannot recommend the Amazon Dot Com highly enough. I love the Amazon Dot Com. The Amazon Dot Com always has great prices, frequently marks things down by huge percentages, has just about anything you could ever want, often has free shipping. And so on. The Amazon Dot Com is absolutely Amazing! They have great customer service. Several years ago, I ordered some Christmas gifts for friends and family and had them shipped to me. The UPS delivered them, but left them sitting on my apartment doorstep. My apartment at the time was in a building where you keyed in the front door (or [ . . . ]

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Oh, Alex III

Mr Trebek had a minor heart attack at his home yesterday. He is recov­ering in hospital, and intends to continue hosting Jeopardy! when it resumes taping in January. I wish him well, and look forward to many more awkward contestant inter­views in the future.

Ham for Hanukkah

Via Eugene Volokh comes this lovely photo, snapped in a New York City Balducci’s by NancyKay Shapiro: Apparently, some found it offensive and the signs have been changed. It’s a marketing faux pas, though. Not a political correctness or religious tolerance issue. Here we have a company in the business of selling stuff that failed to take into account the irra­tional eating habits of a large section of its customer base, and it probably lost a non-​​​​negligible amount of business because of it. If not catering to your customers’ irra­tional whims will hurt your business, should you do it? Or should you instead be engaged in business [ . . . ]

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