Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Halloween Greetings 2007


"We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?" -- Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

* A week ago, my sister found an old reel of film and finally had it developed. One of the more fantastic pix was this oddball shot of our parents -- crazier than they'd ever have hoped to have appeared.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Something Like Brilliance


It's art!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

CHEAPER than CHEAPER


One of the best grammar-related multi-boners is this sign for the store CHEAPER than CHEAPER in San Francisco's Richmond District. Here are the errors:

1. The name of the store: CHEAPER than CHEAPER makes no sense. Cheaper Than Cheap is stupid, but it would at least make sense in a way. Why is the second CHEAPER larger than the first CHEAPER?
2. "Smile,your saving" a lot of money. First: let's ignore that it's stupid, why is "Smile,your saving" in quotes? It's not a quote attributed to someone. It's not a saying. Why is only the first part of the statement in quotes? The whole thing is mind-boggling.
3. "Smile,your": A space goes after a comma. Sometimes you will get emails from people who don't know this, but again, when it's the sign for your business -- proofreaders?
4. "Your" should be "You're."

* Credit at least for not using "CHEAPER then CHEAPER." I try to explain to people that saying "I like this better then this" is wrong. They should say "I like this better than this." This is the most common grammatical error I see these days. Almost everyone does it. Wake up, bitches!

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Apostrophe Catastrophe I


My friend Jenny and I were talking about grammar-related concerns recently. People putting apostrophes where they don't belong, or leaving them out when they should be in, etc. The worst is when you see it in signs and things. Are there no proofreaders? Are there no editors? Then a couple days later I was in the supermarket and saw this magazine cover. This is a huge magazine -- schlocky gossip rag garbage -- but huge. You'd think they'd have someone look at stuff before they print it on the cover of an international magazine. (Note: There should be an apostrophe after Julia Roberts: either Roberts' or Roberts's, not Robert's. As it is it's like saying "Reese Witherspoon husband walks out.")

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Tinto Brass

I emailed my friend, "When I was visiting my parents recently I changed my Netflix account address to my parents' address. Then returned to LA, put two soft-core porn/erotica/70s-sexploitation pix at the top of my queue, forgot to change my address, the discs went to my parents' house, Mom emails me saying Netflix sent two movies to them and should she send them to me or send them back to Netflix, I say 'send them to me' not knowing whether they opened them or not, then I get them, they had been opened, and that's a little embarrassing."

My friend replied, "That's kind of like when I just started getting Maxim Magazine for free, sent to my parents' house and I go over there and my mom says that a pornographic magazine has been coming with my name on it and why wouldn't I have that sent to my PO box. I said, 'I'm not subscribing to Maxim so I don't know why it's coming here, and also Maxim is not pornography.' And my mom says, "Oh, I think it is." And I thought, 'Well you've obviously never clicked on jizzbomb.com.'"

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Kitchen Lime


Another item from my time at my sister's... I took this pic and emailed it to my sister with this note: "Did you want me to save this?"

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Item Glued to Ceiling

I was house and dog sitting for my sister the last few days. At one point I emailed her: "There's a tampon pasted to the ceiling of the guest bathroom." Her response: "It is a panty liner fool!"

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Monday, October 08, 2007

Peter Cetera Names Son "Et"

Not true. But wouldn't it be great if he did name his son "Et Cetera"?

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Sunday, October 07, 2007

Michael Clayton

I went out to The Grove yesterday. I saw Michael Clayton starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack and Michael O'Keefe. It was pretty good, but a little dry. The theater was pretty crowded, but I managed to sit with no one directly next to me. But two seats to my right was an older woman, who kept making noises, and saying things. Like, at one point, she thought someone had been killed, and she moaned an "ooaaahhh." At a particularly intense moment during the climax, she was so ruffled she had no choice but to pick up her long ago discarded popcorn and start munching on it again.

The movie cost $9.75 -- that's the matinee price. I got a popcorn and Coke for another $9.25. Part of this is just being in LA/Hollywood, where movie prices are second only to NYC. Part of it is that The Grove is one of the more expensive theaters, second only to the Arclight, down here, I think. Stadium seating is highly touted, but isn't even all that great.

Anyway, next I went to get some much needed new sunglasses at Nordstrom (also in The Grove). Persol. See enclosed iPhone pic.

While at The Grove I saw a lot of the Hollywood/Beverly Hills type of people that made me hate LA so much when I lived here ten years ago. It is much better to be on the East Side (Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz). The Grove featured many stupid, young people with very, very rich parents: film producers, kings, princes, owners of small countries, mobsters, etc. These people, dripping in expense, and solely concerned with themselves, treated everyone else like they worked for them.

There were a lot of dogs at The Grove. I think I saw an actress who's on a new TV show, and the guy who played the brother-in-law of the victim in 1982's The Verdict -- he had really long hair. I could be wrong.

Then I went to an unnamed supermarket in Los Feliz. There is a girl who works there who bags groceries. She's kind of pretty, but I get the feeling that she hates her job, hates the people that shop in [unnamed supermarket], thinks she deserves better, and maybe she does. She's also a terrible bagger. She could care less. Shockingly slow. I should know, because I used to bag groceries! In 1986! She's terrible. I was great. She's slow and rude and bags carelessly. I was fast and kind and bagged thoughtfully and smartly. I feel like she's the kind of person who could watch someone murder someone else and do nothing and feel nothing. Like, in fact, if she met the right guy, she could become one half of an infamous spree killer couple! Hooray! Of course, I could be wrong about her. Maybe I think too much in my head.

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Friday, October 05, 2007

Blogrageous!

Things are going to get a little blogrageous around here, or perhaps I should say a little more blogrageous. My friend "Jenny" has suggested I write more, blog more, and work out more. So, I am now intending, or rather it is now my intention, or I mean to say, I now intend to update my blog, this blog, on a daily basis. Excited? You should be.

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