Foreign Exchange Program

Randomly looking at some old toothpaste:


Seriously. That site is brilliant.

Frescorts

BBC reports about rentafriend.com and discusses whether it's a good idea or ruining humanity. Clearly this has already been covered by Bryan Fuller.

Now all we need is a hug machine:

I wish I lived in a P.G. Wodehouse book

Aside from the fact that Hugh Laurie might be there being an adorably dense Wooster, the whole lawyer thing seems an easier gig than in real life:

"But I don't know anything about the law. What shall I say to him?"
"That's all right. I've been studying up a bit. As far as I can gather, this legal advice business is quite simple. Anything that isn't a tort is a misdemeanour. You've simply got to tell old Bennett that in your opinion the whole thing looks jolly like a tort."
"What's the word again?"
"Tort."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know. Probably nobody knows. But it's a safe card to play. Tort. Don't forget it."
"Tort. Right ho!"

Wodehouse, Three Men and a Maid 150 (A.L. Burt Co. 1922)

I'm such a sucker for Rube

Is this a Rube Goldberg device or simply an elaborate set of dominoes? It's not really a device, but it's not simply dominoes -- there's some wheel-rolling and pushing-with-air going on. Either way, I kind of like this ad visually, until the end with the monolith phone at the end. Please -- that's so 2001 (as in, A Space Odyssey).

Um, ew.

Dear British people of the world:

This is why you have a bad reputation for food. How does it have so many good reviews? The continental part of my blood is curdling.

You Are What You Eat

I just found a cool little website devoted to direct marketing campaigns (as in, direct mail and other direct marketing and consumer-interactive advertising). It's got some cool, creative stuff.

But this one creeped me out a bit -- a Burger King in Brazil that wanted to show how every order is made fresh to order by printing each customer's picture on the sandwich wrapper. I'm not sure I like the idea of a hidden camera at Burger King, even if it is just for an advertising purpose. On the other hand, it would certainly get my attention, and I'd probably even save the wrapper as a souvenir. (I tend to save cool paper objects, especially advertising.)

Census 2010

I just filled out my Census 2010 form. Don't forget yours! Because participating in constitutional law is awesome.

Rube Goldberg

Many of you know I love Rube Goldberg devices. This one by OK Go is pretty excellent, though I'm not sure it's as easy to follow as it's supposed to be, and I'm a little suspicious about it being done in one shot rather than two (there's a zoom in that would be perfect for a new camera take, though I only watched the video once so I'm not sure).

Kitchen Chinese

Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Ann Mah


I really should have known better. I thought it would be a novel about food -- it's called Kitchen Chinese and was written by a food writer. But it's actually chick lit. Reading the back cover, I realize I should have seen the signs: "Isabelle Lee things she knows everything about Chinese cuisine. . . . Now, in the wake of a career-ending catastrophe, she's ready for a change -- so she takes off for Beijing to stay with her older sister, Claire. . . . . In the midst of her extreme culture shock, and the more she comes to learn about her sister's own secrets, Isabelle can't help but wonder whether coming to China was a mistake -- or an extraordinary chance to find out who she really is." Sister's secrets? Discovering yourself? This could be an interesting, insightful book, but it could also be incredibly cheesy chick lit.

It's the latter.

It's pretty decent as chick lit goes, but chick lit nonetheless. It's predictable, a quick read, and best when it sticks to food and personal revelations rather than dating, broad assertions about the nature of cross-cultural experiences, and sibling rivalries. (I correctly guessed that the writer is an only child simply from the way she wrote about the main character and her sister. It was just too discombobulated a mess of rivalry, grudges, lack of communication, and yet also intuitively knowing what the other needed and thought.)

Ann Wah admirably figures out how to write bilingual dialogue, explaining important phrases but not bogging down comprehension with a dual system. I got a little annoyed that the pinyin had no tones, but that's not Wah's fault, and for most English readers I dare say it's less distracting to get romanizations of Chinese without little lines above each syllable.

Wah also shines when she talks about Chinese food, which actually made me hungry for Chinese street food more than once. And this may be the first book I've ever read that truthfully explains the awkwardness and avoidance that leads to really unacceptable ways of breaking up with someone. As in, I had total empathy for the text messager in the story, even though I still know it's a despicable thing to do.

However, the book felt too autobiographical -- too many details that didn't make sense to put it unless it was just an observation the author personally made and wanted to include. Yet at the same time, the book was too fake. Sometimes the dialogue was awkward because it tried to explain things without making a proper aside (like when the main character's best friend in China explains to her that she rides a bike to work -- gah!! main character would know that already, so it shouldn't be dialogue, but part of the narration). Or the narration sounded weird because it became too colloquial/talky, as when the main character explains that in middle school, "Shannon and I soon became BFFs." Really? "BFFs"?

But the stylistic awkwardness would be forgiven if it weren't for the totally lame love interest plot. I give Wah points for not even trying to pretend that she's come up with something suspenseful -- she makes it painfully obvious who the main character is going to end up with moment she meets him. It's just too too "meet cute" not to end with some ridiculous mushy dialogue at the back of the book. But it did annoy me that the reader is introduced to the romantic interest on page 68, I figured out who he was by page 69, and the main character doesn't figure it out until page 204. I mean, being a little dense is one thing, but if you know a guy named Charlie is going to be at an event that is honoring a guy named Charles who you know works in the SAME OFFICE, don't you think you might, just might, put 2 and 2 together? What works in crappy romantic comedy movies doesn't work quite as well in first person narratives because narrator has to both give all the necessary information and be stupid enough not to know what's going on.

But all in all, Kitchen Chinese was enjoyable enough, especially for its descriptions of China and Chinese food. It's not particularly thought provoking, but it's worth reading over a weekend or on the beach. As long as there's a Chinese restaurant nearby to fulfill your cravings.

Shades of Grey

Another Lenten season without movies. And so you, dear reader, are going to have to deal with book reviews instead of any movie reviews for the next 40 days. Unless, of course, I review a movie I watched before Ash Wednesday. Which I guess I could do. Hmmm... Well, until I do that:

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde


OK, I'm not an objective reader here -- Jasper Fforde is my favorite living author -- but this was a lot of fun to read. Not as brilliant as the first few Thursday Next novels, or even the first of the Nursery Crimes, but still I think this series has a ton of potential. It's a zany world of colorblind people, where social caste is based on how much and which color you can see. Also a mildew that is the cause of death for each and every person. Also an antiquated system of marrying for rank, not love. Also Apocryphal people, and highly regulated paint shops, and animals born with bar codes to identify themselves. Jasper Fforde is also one of the few people I can think of who could pull off writing such a funny, comedic book that ends, rather than with a happy couple and Good overcoming Evil, with a sham marriage and deaths of several important characters. And yet I still loved it.

I'm such a pushover for Fforde that I'll give this 4 out of 4 stars, even though I've read better from him, and there were some passages that were a bit stilted (this is by far his most complicated alternate reality yet -- explaining the rules to a colorblind society that can still produce artificial color that everyone can see gets a bit convoluted at times).

Happy Presidents Day

Happy Presidents Day! (sorry, the Muppets won't let me embed this, but it's worth the link, I promise)

Ultimate Pluto Platter

Inventor of the Pluto Platter dies:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/12/2818587.htm?section=world

To Be Or Not To Be

Back in high school, one of my friends told me I should watch this movie, but I kept putting it off because the premise seemed strange (see below). I understand why my friend thought I would like To Be of Not To Be: I love Shakespeare. I love 40s comedies. And (until this movie) I particularly like the 40s director Ernst Lubitsch, who directed one of my favorite movies, Ninotchka, as well as The Shop Around the Corner, the sweet little movie on which You've Got Mail was based. So I'm a bit sad to report that To Be or Not To Be actually creeped me out more than entertained me. I don't think it means to be a black comedy, but this is by far one of the darkest I've seen.

Don't get me wrong. The actors are great. Jack Benny is very funny, and Carole Lombard is the definition of a star: luminescent and radiant. But I just couldn't get over the fact of this movie: a 1942 film about the Nazi occupation of Poland. Basically, the story revolves around a Polish theater troupe in Warsaw that gets sucked into high espionage when a star struck young bomber pilot in England accidentally asks a German spy to get a message to the woman he loves -- actress Maria Tura, played by Carole Lombard. The pilot finds out that the spy has information that will destroy the Polish Underground, along with all of the Resistance movement in Eastern Europe. And so he flies back to Poland to intercept the spy. In the process, Maria Tura, her hammish actor husband (played by Jack Benny), and the rest of the troupe go through hijinx galore to save Poland, the Resistance, and their own skins. Jack Benny wears a false beard and losing a mustache out the window of a car, while Carole Lombard seduces no less than three Gestapo officials within the span of 24 hours. There's a comedy routine with a corpse. A bit player dresses up as Hitler with a little mustache and fools about two dozen Gestapo guards into following him and deserting the real Hitler. Seriously, folks??

The hardest part about this movie is that, because it was made in 1942, it couldn't give a conclusive ending. Who knew who was really going to win? Instead, a few good people make it out of mainland Europe and on a plane to England. Not exactly a triumphant ending. I'm sure Lubitsch -- a German-born Jew -- could not have thought that comedy alone could mask the uncomfortable task of making a movie about the Polish occupation while Poland was still occupied. Several times throughout the movie, a bit player in the troupe (played by one of my favorite Lubitsch regulars, Felix Bressart) who dreams one day of playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice keeps reciting the "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" speech. It's always a poignant speech, and Lubitsch lets its emotional weight come through each time, right before cutting away to more slapstick. It's a strange juxtaposition that echoes the even stranger juxtaposition of the movie itself, which played in theaters along with news reels about the realities of concentration camps and the war in Europe. The thought of this movie being made when the outcome of World War II was still uncertain is flabbergasting to me -- the movie is incredibly brave to treat the Nazis with such derision as well as humor, but also massively strange and unsettling if you didn't know the third act would end out all right, as it were.

In the end, I could never get over the oddity of the movie to actually enjoy it. Slapstick comedies are supposed to be heart-warming, or escapist, or something, not awkward and macabre as this one is. When it's ill-timed, laughter is not the best medicine.

2 stars -- good but falling far short of delightful.

BBC World News

I've spent a lot of the last few snowed-in days listening to BBC online (through NPR, but I tend to listen early morning and late evening, when things switch to BBC). I feel very informed about Chilean politics and international car recalls now, but this is what tickled me the most: There was a story about Google's new social networking programming, and I cannot tell at all where the reporter was from. What UK accent makes you pronounce "Google" like "Giggle"?

Come Rain or Sleet or Snow

I saw a UPS truck on my street today. I really really hope they continue to deliver later this week as more snow comes -- 16 pounds of flour and yeast are headed my way from the King Arthur Flour company. White breads and wheat breads are fine, but I'm ready to get my ryes and barleys on. (OK, OK, half a pound of that is chocolate, not flour, but it's for making pain au chocolat, so it still counts as bread ingredients, right?)

In other news, I am officially over the snow. Huge welt on my knee from falling when helping push someone's car out of the ditch around Columbus Circle. Stop driving, people, if you don't know how to drive in snow!

The Only Harp I Ever Wanted to Play

Sweet sweet harmonica playing, by some young 'uns.

War Reporting for Cowards

Amazon is selling this book for $3.77 at the moment -- if you are thinking about buying it, now is the time!

It's hard to imagine less than two weeks of actual war reporting being stretched into a whole book, but Ayres does it quite well, and I only rarely begrudged him my $12 in exchange for a memoir so light on the experience actually, you know, billed in the title. I found myself laughing out loud on the Metro, which is always a good sign for a book.

What's more, I never felt like Ayres was dogmatic in any way. This isn't an anti-war book. It's an anti-Ayres-being-at-the-war book. And it's not a dry political/military history book -- he doesn't spend much time discussing the overall politics and war strategy of the Iraq war (is it too soon for that?)

Best of all, Ayres appears to have real respect for the others who seem so alien to him, especially the Marines with whom he lived for a short time. Ayres says in the acknowledgments, "My own experiences in Iraq are trivial compared with those of the Marines; but warriors are rarely writers (when they are, they win Pulitzers), and I hope that my memoir helps readers understand what these men's daily lives are like." That it did.

(As an added bonus, Ayres' account of his experiences in NYC on 9/11 and the days shortly thereafter exhibit an insight into the emotions of those weeks better than anything I've read in a long time. I found myself contemplating my own perspective of those anthrax-and-terrorist-filled days much more deeply than I have in the last 5-7 years. A beautifully heart-wrenching chapter.)

Frazz

I am loving today's Frazz:

Preach it, PHD Comics

I want to see this PHD comic in newswriters' cubicles across the country, along with the ubiquitous Dilbert and Cathy strips: (click on image to go to the original -- and larger -- image)

Eep! It's 2010!

I can't believe I haven't posted in two months! Time does get away, doesn't it? It's particularly sad because I've watched a bunch of movies and even read a few books in the last couple of months. And if I don't write down my thoughts, there's a chance I'll forget I've even seen something. As happened just this week when I told a coworker I hadn't seen Can't Hardly Wait. No wait. I have. Oh, sure, yeah, I thought it was *really* good -- can't you tell what a lasting impression it made?

So, because I'm lazy, but still feel guilty that I haven't posted yet in 2010, I'll just lift a few of my short Netflix reviews:

The Dress Code (2000): The writers here must have thought quirkiness equals character, so there's a lot of the former and little of the latter. But the actors make up for it and deliver wonderfully nuanced performances that only hint at the depths of the people portrayed. The end felt a little forced, but I didnt care by that point -- I was too charmed by all the actors, from Alex Linz (the little boy) and Stacey Halprin (the mother) to the big name stars. All in all, a nice little story. If you like this movie, I also recommend Saint Ralph. Its in a similar vein, and I liked it much more than this one. 2 stars.

Easy Virtue: Where is the Noel Coward wit? It's there, but it's hidden, and I found myself wanting more brandishing of that wit than faux-20s music and overly staged sets. There were a few really good moments, but they're in the preview. This one barely earns its three stars, but Kristin Scott Thomas bumps it up a notch. She is the one razor sharp character among a pile of dull blades. And without equal blades, a jousting contest is just not that interesting. And to top it all off, I wouldn't actually classify this as "romantic comedy," which is clearly what the studio is going for. Just look at who they cast -- I thought Colin Firth *meant* sappy romantic comedy! Plus, they totally sell the happy-go-lucky side of the movie in the trailer, product description, and even classification for Netflix. (Actually, I don't know if the studio suggests the classification, or if Netflix does that. But whoever did it, it's misleading.) This isn't Oscar Wilde and it isn't An Ideal Husband -- not exactly a happy ending here. 1.5 stars.

Two Brothers and a Bride: I was surprised how much I liked this movie. Basically, it's about two brothers who run a farm who go to Russia to find a wife to take care of them after their mother dies. David Arquette and Tim Blake Nelson star, along with Emily Mortimer as a journalist in Russia who starts following them around for her documentary on mail-order brides. Given the premise, it could have come out very preachy ("Bad human-trafficking-type business!") or misogynistic ("Ha-ha! Look at the funny desperate Russian women, or the silly feminists!") or make cruel fun of two farm boys ("Wow they are such hicks, and stupid, too, for being unable to take care of themselves without their mother"). Instead, it is a small but lovable movie that refuses to condemn any of the characters, even as it does recognize the ridiculous in almost all of them. Plus, you get the pleasure of very good performances by Mortimer, Arquette, and Nelson. Not a must-see, but a nice change of pace from your typical meet-cute romcoms. 2 stars.