The wall between the newsroom and the boardroom is long gone.
via Cowboy Sally
So I upgraded my Netflix service to five-movies-at-a-time. Three just wasn't cutting it. To celebrate, I'm announcing a new feature of blogfucker.com, which I've been working on for a while. Now you (yes, YOU) can view my Netflix queue right here at bf-dot-c. Just click here, or the link from my Input page, and you can see the last 10 flicks I've watched, what I currently have in my posession, and the next 10 that are coming down the pike. Click here to see everything I've watched since I joined Netflix in October, and everything I have in my queue.
Why would you want to do this? Beats the hell out of me, but I've been working on this for a while, in an effort to improve my m4d ski11z.
Non-Geeks Need Not Read the Following Paragraph
I'll make the code available to anyone who asks--just shoot me an email (netflixcodeATblogfuckerDOTcom). I'm not smart enough to scrape the actual Netflix url, so I've basically recreated the database using PHP and MySQL. Every time I make a change on the Netflix site, I make it on my side as well. It's kind of a pain, but it's easier than doing it manually. You'll need a little knowledge of php and mysql to make it work, I can't provide a lot of tech support in that area, although I'll gladly answer questions about how the app works.
Non-Geeks Continue Here
So as to not be a huge hypocrite, I've stopped linking to Amazon.com on my Input page. For books, I now link to booksense.com, which allows you to order online from local booksellers and avoid the big chains. For music, I link to Spun.com, it's not only an independent seller, but it also deals a lot with used CDs. As a general rule, I'll only buy major label discs from the used bin. I try to buy indies new. You can buy CDs however the good goddamn you see fit.
I've used both these services, but only very recently. If anyone has any reason to believe either of them isn't a damn good place to buy stuff, please let me know.
One of Hollywood's unsung Greats, Skeleton Warrior, passed away this weekend in his sleep.
I first discovered Skeleton Warrior through his last major project: Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness (1992). Although clearly past his prime, Warrior delivered one of the finest performances I'd ever seen. Four, actually. While Bruce Campbell was lauded for playing two different roles in the film, somehow no one seemed to notice that Skeleton Warrior had shone in no less than four: "Evil Skeleton Commander", "Evil Skeleton #8", "Talking Skull" and, in a small but pivotal performance, "Skeleton Hands Emerging From Grave". He was brilliant. When he takes the flaming arrow through the eye socket in the final battle, you really felt it. It's a bit of a cliché--like "Where were you when Kennedy was shot"--but I clearly remember where I was when I first saw Skeleton Warrior on screen.
I traced his career back and found a nearly endless (if you'll pardon the pun) body of work. I remember scouring the local video store for old copies of the classics: Jason & the Argonauts, the Sinbad films (1, 2). I ate them up like candy.
They say that Skeleton Warrior's finest work was never captured on film. As a young skeleton in the 1920s, he performed Shakespeare with John Barrymore on stage, until he was (rather controversially) replaced mid-run. Legend has it that Barrymore had him ousted, embarrassed that his Hamlet was being upstaged nightly by Yorick.
By the 1930s, Warrior had moved to Hollywood, and was getting by brilliantly with parts in B-movies and monster flicks. Perhaps his best shot at superstardom came (and went) in 1944 when, in the midst of Lon Chaney's wildly successful "Mummy" series, Warrior was set to play opposite Chaney in "The Skeleton". Before shooting could start, conflict arose over billing (Chaney famously told Variety that he "would never shared top billing with a prop!") and the project was scrapped.
Devastated, Skeleton Warrior fell on hard times. Like many young actors of his day, he had his demons but, some would say, those demons kept him alive.
By the early 60s Skeleton Warrior hooked up with Ray Harryhausen, and his career began to reanimate. All in all, though, I think Harryhausen's received too much credit for Warrior's success. True, he got him parts in Jason and Sinbad, but by the 1970s, Harryhausen had become Col. Tom Parker to Warrior's Elvis. A hanger-on, slowly sapping the lifeblood of an incredible talent. In the mid-80s, Warrior was reduced playing high school science room props in teen comedies.
Late in life he got the occasional gig standing in for Lara Flynn Boyle or in a series of ice tea commercials, but aside from Army of Darkness, he never landed a starring role again.
He spent his last days touring shopping malls, sitting outside Sam Goody, selling his autograph for a dollar. Those who saw him said he looked terrible--his hollow stare seeming more vacant than ever. The once-great Warrior, they said, had been defeated. I only hope he has found in death the peace that eldued him in undeath.
Rest in peace, Skeleton Warrior.
REMEMBRANCES
A Flash tribute to Skeleton Warrior
An American Gladitor remembers S.W.
Skeleton Warrior was a true BottomDweller
Reflections of a WonderChicken
The Skeleton Warrior Tribute Site
The Taste of Honeysuckle
Tailors Today
D/blog
Dog Door of Death
Plurp!
I'm back, I guess. Our family has suffered a loss, and I was kind of in a bad way, so I took the site down for the day. I'm sorry if I worried anyone
Here's what happened:
It isn't a person, but a pet that we lost. My 'niece', actually. She was a beautiful chocolate labrador retriever named Chloe, and she was just two years old. (That's her on the left in the photo, next to her little brother, six-month-old Calvin.) She had a bowel obstruction which punctured her intestine. It led to a massive infection, and she was gone inside of 48 hours.
There are no (human) nieces or nephews in the family, so we've put our love and energy into the pups. To lose her so young is hard.
Last Saturday, before the infection set in, I sat with her. We knew she had the obstruction and were hoping she'd pass it. We had no idea how ill she was about to become. She was happy and energetic, but you could tell she was uncomfortable. I lay with her on the living room floor, gently rubbing her tummy until she fell asleep. Now, I'm so glad I spent those few minutes watching her sleep. They're the last I'll ever have with her.
I'm not being glib, but completely honest when I say I much prefer animals to most people. And I much preferred Chloe to most animals. And I'm going to miss her.
Threads like the (recently deleted) plus-sized model thread really disturb me because they show that under all its book-learnin' and political-correctness, Mefi is still a bunch of ignorant highschool kids at heart. When the subject is (a) fat people or (b) women or (in this case) both they all just slip back into that neanderthal, MTV-influenced mindset. They show that they don't really get it. They show that that they're just parrotting what they've heard. Repeating "Britney's body = good. Courtney Love's = bad." is just as bad, in the opinion of your humble narrator, as repeating "Cowboys = good. Indians = bad." or even "Blacks = lazy n*gg*rs."
Even some of those who think they're being progressive and forward-thinking are really just showing off a different flavor of bigotry. "I like a girl with a little meat on her bones" is like saying "Some of my best friends are fat chicks." Just because you objectify women who stray from the cookie-cutter norm doesn't mean you don't objectify women.
Now, there's nothing wrong with finding women--even certain body-types--sexy. I sure do. But don't walk around like Joe Sensitive just because you recognize that anorexia isn't necessarily sexy.
Chicks hate that.
So I'm visiting my teenage cousins the other day, and the 14 year old is acting like an idiot. So I say to him "Dude, why are you wiggin'?"
And the 16 year old says to me "'Wiggin'? What does 'wiggin' mean?"
Like I'm speaking in tongues or something. Like I just called something "tubular" or "swell".
So I say "You know. Freakin' out. That's what we used to call it. Back in the 90s."
Everyone seems to take for granted that airlines can require passengers to present a government-issued ID before boarding. It's not true.
Via cardhouse.com, via kafkaesque.
Freedom is, it has been said, like a muscle. Exercise it, or it will waste away.