Tag Archives: opinion

Girl Scout Cookies of 2018, Ranked from Best to Bleah

February 3, 2018 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Girl Scout Cookies!

Today’s haul courtesy of a troop tabling at a local Kroger. It was fun watching three girls race to see who could total up our purchases in their head the fastest.

It’s that time again! Every year my wife and I look forward to Girl Scout cookie season, when young-lady empowerment meets the spirit of entrepreneurship and the happy result is another satisfying fix for this perennial craving of ours. Times have gotten harder ever since our usual suppliers went to ground, by which I mean the Girl Scouts we used to know got old and got out of the game. Unfortunately our relatives haven’t been spawning replacement Girl Scouts to hook us up lately, and we’re sadly not hanging out with the right twenty- or thirtysomething crowds whose households harbor these adorable dealers that we can’t live without. That means we have to go prowling around our local groceries and big-box stores in hopes of finding a troop and their moms hanging out by the front door and selling whatever leftovers their own families didn’t buy off them by the crateload.

Today we lucked into a batch early in the season, but had to extricate ourselves from a slowly escalating debate over which ones are best. Rather than keep sowing seeds of dissent between those loyal friends, we walked away and left the two moms and a dad to restore order. That conversation haunted me for the rest of the day. When that happens, I usually have no choice but to type out those thoughts, thereby freeing up that obsessing brain space and clearing my head once again.

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The 88th Oscars Nominations: Initial Thoughts, Lists, and Stats

January 14, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Creed!

Original working title for this entry: “I’m Sorry the Academy Thinks Michael B. Jordan Sucks”.

The Academy Award nominations are in! But you already knew that because chances are you’ve had more time for internet than I have today. You’ve already been surprised at how many of the nominees you’ve seen, not surprised that the theme of the 88th Academy Awards will be the Year of the White Guy, and probably up in arms that Star Wars: The Force Awakens wasn’t nominated in nineteen different categories including Best Foreign Language Film on behalf of the one scene with the two guys from The Raid. Ha! Sorry you got your hopes up, you FOOL. The guys from The Raid weren’t nearly white enough.

(If you had to work today like I did, here’s the complete list in showy poster format, or you can do like I do and skip to the “Printable List” button on the right side of that page for a handy PDF. I have zero interest in copying ‘n’ pasting the entirety from someone else’s site, or in typing every single title from scratch. It’s not like I’m paid by the word.)

Momentary pause here to signify my disappointment that Creed likewise failed to be nominated for all the awards ever. I’m sincerely cool with Stallone’s nomination and expected no less, but much more love needed to go out to Michael B. Jordan, director Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Goransson’s score, screenplay, editing, the works. I already went through this frustration two years ago with Fruitvale Station, and yet here we go again. A few things went my way, but seeing Creed seated at the kiddie table wasn’t one of them.

(Same goes to a certain extent for Inside Out, my favorite film of 2015, but I’m used to Hollywood underrating its animated films. To its credit, it received nods for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay, which means it got twice as many nominations as Creed did. Congrats?)

The following lists and other thoughts popped into my head throughout the day while I mulled over this year’s honorees:

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Indianapolis v. Indiana

March 31, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments
Indianapolis Welcomes You!

…even if the rest of the state doesn’t.

For those just joining us: on March 26, 2015, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a variant of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act intended for application at the state level, but the entire affair was conducted under, um, unique circumstances that have resulted in 90% of my Twitter feed turning into serious headlines and snarky generalizations alike that collectively amount to “INDIANA R STUPID HUUUUUUUUR!”

Pence fumbled his first attempt at damage control Sunday morning on live national TV, and even earned himself the attention of The Onion, which is never a sign of victory for your side. He and/or his speechwriters penned a second try that’s online now and scheduled for publication in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.

Early prediction, based on the excerpts I’ve seen: it won’t help.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and the Indianapolis City-County Council aren’t sitting still for this. As numerous local and national corporations of impressive size and power express their outrage and economic threats, tonight the Republican Ballard and the mostly Democrat Council gathered before a standing-room-only crowd and voted to semi-cordially ask Pence and the Indiana General Assembly to, in so many words, KNOCK IT OFF. Several Republican members were on board with this.

In a Council of 28 members the resolution required more than fourteen votes to pass. Even before the vote, it had sixteen co-sponsors.

So we’re effectively looking at a schism between the state and capital city governments.

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The 87th Oscars Nominations: Initial Random Thoughts and Lists

January 15, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Selma!

The long march from Selma to the Dolby Theatre was stopped cold in its tracks by a fabulous year in white cinema.

The Academy Award nominations are in! But you already knew that. Like 99% of America, you likely haven’t seen too many of the nominees yet. The complete list is available in myriad locations (here’s the example I’ve been using for reference), so I don’t see a point in wasting time or space copying, pasting, and reformatting all that off someone else’s site. The nice thing about running my own site is I have no high-pressure word-count quotas to meet.

I’ve seen and written about three of the nominees so far — Birdman, Boyhood, and Selma — all of which I super-liked, all of which I wish could win all the prizes, one of which was dealt a far crappier hand than the other two by the elderly white voting majority of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Perhaps Selma‘s most egregious error was in failing to better balance the dual celebrations of black and white nobility like The Help did. Who can say.

The following lists and other thoughts popped into my head throughout the day while I mulled over this year’s honorees:

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What Buzzfeed Gets Wrong About Your “Geek Number”

April 15, 2014 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Geek Quiz Results

My quiz results don’t tell me how many other geeks I outrank and are therefore useless to include on my resumé.

My Facebook friends love sharing internet quizzes out of the boredom of their heart, but I generally skip them on standoffish principle. Of those few I click on, I rarely finish because sooner or later I encounter a question with no right answer, no close answer, not even an answer I would pretend is right just to finish out the page. Alas, I’ll never know which Frozen character I am, which Hogwarts house would have me, how hipster I am, or which member of One Direction is my secret twin. I don’t want to know these answers, because knowing is half the defeat.

Then someone somewhere in the underground internet clickbait factories switched gears and decided to tempt us with checklists instead of quizzes, because they sound less like schoolwork. As a lifelong list junkie, I have a harder time walking past a checklist without ticking a few boxes, especially if I can pretend it’s for statistical science. And when Buzzfeed posted a checklist called “What’s Your Geek Number?” I’ll admit I was an easy mark. I gave it a whirl and wasn’t surprised at the results, or at the questionable test construction and the myth it perpetuates.

More on that myth this way…

The 86th Oscars Nominations: Initial Random Thoughts

January 16, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Sandra Bullock, Gravity, Best Picture NomineeIf you’re online much, you’re already aware this year’s Academy Awards nominations were announced today. If you follow either The Hollywood Reporter or The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Twitter, you had the opportunity to see the categories live-tweeted one at a time early this morning. If you shared my mistake of following both entities, you were treated to a double-barrel Oscar-nom redundancy blast that turned Twitter to sludge for fifteen minutes. Homework question: how many live-tweeters does any given event really need?

I’ll not waste your bandwidth copying-‘n’-pasting the full list of nominees that’s readily available on a million other news sites. Several thoughts popped into my head throughout the day while mulling over the results:

* As discussed in the past, since 1997 I’ve made a point every year of seeing every Best Picture nominee as soon as possible. This year I’m facing quite the obstacle course, as I’ve only seen one of the nine nominees so far (hint: the one with the spaceship). In my defense, six of the nine only opened here in Indianapolis within the last month, a few of which were packed exclusively into the single art-house theater on the other side of the city. Late December and early January are never the best time of year for leisure travel. Unless they’re each gifted with a wider re-release in the nearer gen-pop theaters, I’m seeing a lot of mileage in my immediate future.

Beyond the curtain for more…

Wallflower Agrees to Disagree with Company Holiday Party

December 2, 2012 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Every year my wife and I pin my company’s holiday party on our calendar for exactly three reasons:

1. It’s a rare excuse to spend quality time together in an adult setting in nice clothes.

2. It’s a free dinner.

3. They’re generous about giving out door prizes to the majority of the attendees.

It’s been a few years since my last door prize, but I try not to give up hope for the first few hours of the party, during which she and I do our best to pass the time with not much to keep us occupied except each other and pure imagination. This is not as easy for us as it is for normal people. We don’t dance or drink. Those I call “friend” usually find reasons to bow out. Those I call “happy acquaintance” are great at pre-planning their seating arrangements with their longtime closer friends. The two of us usually find an empty table, establish our own Island of Misfit Diners, and grant asylum to other loners or latecomers seeking refuge. It’s a necessary service we’re used to providing.

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