Psychic Ellie, FTW!

Earlier today I was thinking about how long it's been since there was a fire alarm at work. They used to occur with maddening regularity, but I don't think there's been one all summer. Then, this afternoon, the fire alarm went off! Freaky.

The first song I heard on the radio this morning was King of Pain. I thought it was a nice coincidence to start off my week. Also, I really love that song.

It’s my destiny to be the King of Lame

Today in “Ways in Which Ellie is Lamer than She Wants You to Think” I will confess to what I’ve been listening to on  repeat for the past two weeks (although, the very fact that I’m putting this on a public forum could be construed as evidence of the fact that I want people to know how lame I am. This whole internet-voluntarily-forgoing-privacy-age is such a confusing time). I’ll wait while you guess. Like Jeopardy, your answer only counts if you say it out loud. The answer isn’t necessarily surprising just, you know, kind of lame: the soundtrack for the reviled Broadway musical Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, with music by Bono and The Edge.  

When I first heard about it I thought it could be kind of awesome. I’m not a huge Spiderman fan, but I look forward to every U2-related project with the same faithful enthusiasm and while I am sometimes disappointed, mostly I am not. But, as time passed, and all I read about were all the problems that plagued the musical, I kind of assumed it couldn’t be good and figured I’d never listen to it. Then I saw Carney open for U2, and I found out their frontman plays Spiderman in the musical, and then I saw the video for the single, and I was bored one night, so I got the soundtrack and had a listen.

It’s pretty standard musical theater stuff. I don’t know anything about the plot aside from it being the usual Spiderman origin story. Because of that, some of the songs make little sense to me, like the green goblin singing that he’s a “65 millions dollar circus tragedy” and then going on about all the widows in the world being in New York. Anyway, the cool thing is that most of the songs totally have the U2 sound, and very Bono lyrics, and both Bono and Edge sing on the some of the tracks (Edge singing is a dig deal. He hasn't been lead on a U2 song since the early 90s). So, it simultaneously satisfies the part of me that loves musicals and the part of me that responds to U2 music. Two, I assume adjacent, parts of my brain that have never been happy at the same time before. It’s quite remarkable, and addictive. It’s quite awesome to have those two things combined.

So, now I think there needs to be more cross-over in the things I love or otherwise enjoy. I’m thinking of a musical with lyrics by Douglas Coupland and music by Bono & Edge. It’s about The Doctor time/space traveling in the TARDIS with Charles Darwin and Joss Whedon as his companions, starring the cast of Arrested Development, liberally peppered with references about how awesome fish are. It would have a niche audience, but I think I would die of happiness listening to it (if I had Photoshop I would totally make a picture of this musical, but you'll just have to use your imagination).   

If only VIA weren't so expensive

Has anyone else noticed that planes seem to be falling out of the sky recently? Every day there's another report of some kind of crash, or collision, or accident. It's alarming. It could just be that these things are more reported than in the past, but it feels like some modern horseman of the apocalypse.

I can't tell those two Republican guys apart

I have a shirt that says "America is Scary." I bought it back around the time they legitimately elected Bush. At the time, I felt the sentiment was true. Then, suddenly America wasn't scary any more. They elected Obama! Things were looking up! Meanwhile, in Canada it felt like we were the scary ones. (Albeit, without t-shits to tell us so. At least according to Google image search).  My point is, there was awhile there where I felt like I couldn't wear the shirt in public because America didn't really deserve it.

I'm beginning to think that time has come for me to wear the shirt again. It feels like America is getting it's scary on again. Granted, everything I know about American politics I get from The Daily Show and  Moron's With Signs. I'm sure they don't downplay the scary. Even so, with only a precious year until the next election, I suspect things are only going to get worse.

Speaking of the election, I can't tell Mit Perry and Rick Romney apart. Wait. No. It's Rick Perry and Mit Romney. Part of it is the names, informal first names, last names ending in -ey. There's little there for me to latch on to as distinguishing. The other problem is that when looking at both of them on the screen, I don't know which is which. They might as well be the same person to me. I gather that one of them is a front-runner, but I don't know if it's the one that annoys me, or the one that genuinely scares me. History would suggest that it's the latter. I think I'll actually be happy once the Republicans decide on a candidate, because then I can a) stop trying to remember who everyone is, and b) focus all my worrying around one person.

Shut up R

Click to enlarge.

Get set. Go.

Sometimes when I'm purchasing something and the cashier says "swipe your card when you're ready," I get the urge to just stand there, card in hand, and staring at the debit machine. I'd do this until the cashier says "you can swipe your card now." Then I would shout back "I'M NOT READY!"

'Cause, really, that phrase is so stupid. Swipe when you're ready. As if it takes lots of mental preparation or coaching.

How could it happen? No one knows. But it did

This went under my radar, but Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy) is in a shark movie with D.B.Sweeny from Cutting Edge (although I also remember him from a show called Strange Luck that Fox made in the mid-90s when they were trying to capilatize on the success of X Files and they aired a whole whack of sci-fiy shows).

But my real reason for this post is this movie: Zaat. The trailer is a narrative mess, so I imagine the movie would have been nearly incomprehensible.



Admit it, those first 40 seconds you were like, "With a few more genetics credits, that could've been  you, Ellie." That's what I thought anyway. Then, of course, I thought "pollute the universe? with a spray bottle? Won't that take a very long time?  and what's with the near-subliminal shot of the couple making out? Who would want to see just the last 15 minutes of a movie anyway?" 

I found this on io9, along with other aquatic-related monster movies. I hadn't heard of most of them, including Blood Beach, which should really be renamed Death Sand: The Sand That Eats People. 

Art of Fiction

I was already excited for the new Wayne Johnston book  A World Elsewhere. Like, really excited. Then I found out that the author Edith Wharton is a (I think, small) character in the book and I had a bibliogasm. How awesome that my favourite female author would be a character in a novel by one of my favourite male authors. (I haven’t reviewed my favourite male author ratings lately, but I think I’ll put that off until after the next Wright comes out). 

At the moment I’m reading two things. The first is Under the Dome by Stephen King. I read King initially as a kid because my mom liked him so much and his books were (and still are) all over the house. In hindsight, I was probably way too young to be reading those books, but my mom was never one to censor us. In recent years, Mom & I have given up on King. We’re of the opinion that he hasn’t written anything very good since getting hit by that van. It may just be a coincidence, but regardless, we generally like his work pre-van, but post-van has been less than exciting, e.g., the snot monster in Dreamcatcher? I mean, that’s hardly at the artistic level of a giant spider masquerading as a psycho clown, is it?

Reports from someone else’s homeland

My mom called me at work the other day. My parents are visiting relatives down south right now, so when my mom called me long distance in the middle of the day, I thought for sure someone was dead. Thankfully, she was just calling to tell me that The Help isn’t racist and that it just depicts a racist situation. I’d heard some bad things about The Help, which really put me off wanting to read it. Apparently my mom thought this was eating me up inside and felt the need to let me know right away, pretty much as they were leaving the theatre.

She sent me an email with things she’s seen around during her visit so far. She’s really not one for taking pictures, but she does have an almost eidetic memory, even at 61.  

Bumper sticker: Jesus is Lord, not a swear word

On the side of an auto body shop: Serving you and the Lord

Billboard:  Jesus fish, with the words "Do you know I love you? I do"

Billboard: "Who's the father?" to advertise just that service [at least they got the punctuation right].

Billboard: picture of Obama with the words "It's we the people, not you the president"

At the Decatur Farmers' Market: one of those universal "no" signs on the door, forbidding handguns.

Cute story:Aunt Janet ate lunch with her grandson and stepgrandchildren one day. One of the kids whose grandmother wasn't there asked if Janet could be his grandma. Jayden said, "She's my NANA. She's got 12 guns and 15 tattoos, and she's my nana." [My Aunt Janet is the one who pulled a gun on someone who broke into her house once.]