Amanuensis's Journal

Of Bats and Cats

2017-04-09T20:00:40Z

Today I saw The LEGO Batman Movie. I really should be talking about how it was a masterpiece of parody, how every frickin' frame had at least 3 in-jokes in it and some had dozens (Easter eggs? More like a damn chicken farm)...but right now the thing I wanna mention is the cute talking-animal commercial which preceded the movie advertising a product which you can put in your cat's litter box that will keep your dog from going into it to eat the cat poop. I did not know this was a thing and right now I am so glad I'm not a pet owner.

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Amazon Prime Pilots: one great, one not-so-great

2017-03-19T23:32:45Z

I watched two of the Amazon Prime Pilot Season pilots this weekend; Amy Sherman-Palladino should have a helluva hit with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, about a 1950s Jewish Manhattanite who finds her talent for stand-up comedy. I'm not saying it will be the next Gilmore Girls, but the concept is fresh and the dialogue deliciously funny. Please, everyone vote for it! It would be a tragedy if that one didn't get at least a season.

Oasis looked like the sort of SF series I would love, but I'm telling you, I can't take one more series that pretends to be hard SF and turns out to be "We traveled to a faraway place and all started seeing hallucinations of our loved ones" bizarro creepshow. No. No more of that ever, please! *goes back to waiting for the next season of Westworld instead*

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We'll see in Spring, I expect.

2017-02-09T17:50:45Z

You know what I think is going to be interesting? I'm trying to imagine what Walt Disney World's going to do for its upgrade of the Hall of Presidents.

Imagineers, I sort of envy your task. That could be a true coup of creativity.

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This may be trivial but--nah, you know what? Fashion's never trivial.

2017-01-21T15:38:34Z

I have to say, I loved Michelle Obama's fashion choice for the inauguration. It did everything it should--attractive but fashionably conservative: deep neutral colors, weather-appropriate, and in absolutely no way attempting to compete with the incoming first lady. A total "I am not in a contest, there is NO contest going on," right down to the hairstyle. I long to always show that degree of class.

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And you can take that flippin' celery with you, too!

2017-01-18T01:07:18Z

Did you know that if you google, "chicken soup 'without carrots'", the links you get are all along the lines of, "I can't imagine chicken soup without carrots," or "what is chicken soup without carrots?" The kind I freakin' like, that's what it is. Bah.

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O Princess, my Princess

2016-12-28T02:13:07Z

At first I just wanted to type "GodfuckingDAMMIT 2016!" because I didn't think I could bear to compose anything else. But Carrie Fisher deserves better. Of course she was important to me because of Leia, how could I pretend otherwise? Carrie Fisher was stunningly funny and clever, she was dedicated to her art, and she was a survivor of so many unfair demons too...all those things, but above all she was my formative childhood fictional heroine, and no one else would have given us the same Leia, who taught me that you didn't have to be passive, you didn't have to take a backseat when you had better ideas that everyone else, and you didn't have to take shit from evil people just because it would keep you from being seen as sweet--I'm still trying to learn that one, but I remember her and she helps, oh yes she does.

We will all be weeping basket cases for Star Wars Episode VIII. It's fitting.

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I did not need a Bah, Humbug today.

2016-12-23T23:47:19Z

2016, get your damn hands off Carrie Fisher. OFF, I say.

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also, *

2016-11-12T00:47:00Z

Those of you needing some kind of uplift for this heavy week: I highly, highly recommend going to see Arrival to remember that there is still amazing creativity and beauty in this world.

(*and jeremy renner's perfect dorky grin)

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I am all out of can.

2016-11-10T00:41:09Z

In the county in which I live, Trump did win the vote. So I assumed that today at work there would be have to be a number of people who would look happy.

Nuh-uh. Everyone I encountered was subdued, quiet. No one talked about it, just went on with work in a very unconversational and dull way. No one seemed to want to meet each others' eyes, as if looking too long would lead to talking they didn't want to do.

After Dubya won, I wept and howled and tore at my hair. Today I'm just...tired.

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Yay French musicals!

2016-11-02T23:29:53Z

My region-free DVD player is one of the best purchases I ever made.

My (region 2) DVD of La Legende Du Roi Arthur arrived today! I've waited for this since I heard the littlest sample of the cast recording; I freakin' love the music so much. I'm watching it and singing along with every French lyric I can sort of catch, my French recognition being much worse than my speaking French, which is no longer up to much either. (For most of this show, though, you can just shout "MORGANNE!" every twenty seconds and you'll be right most of the time.)

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FOMOOIC?

2016-10-26T17:23:36Z

I just found out that I've been misinterpreting F.O.M.O.

I first heard of the "Fear of missing out" in relation to people who are surfing the internet, and thought, "That's me exactly, I'm so afraid to be away from the internet in case there's something really funny or fun being posted in my usual surfing spots, or maybe in nifty ones I just haven't found yet. I sure don't want to miss out on content!" And now I find out it has to do with people looking at other people on social media and feeling sad because other people look like they have cooler lives. So it means you might actually consider abandoning the internet to go do other things?! Well, I called that one all wrong, it looks like.

Is there a name/acronym for "Fear of missing out on internet content"?

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My poor neglected journal!

2016-10-09T22:29:28Z

I'm embarrassed because it's been nearly a year since I made a post. A year! No excuses for it, really. I've been in a consuming mode, not a creative one, but you think I could have at least had some MCU opinions or something. I still read my flist and scroll through tumblr, but I even managed to fall behind on those this month. I figure one "I aten't dead" post is excusable. (Also, I am wrestling with ImageShack to restore my photos that make up most of my image links here on the journal. Haven't abandoned anything!)

Cleaning my house and getting rid of things I don't need has become the thing that gets me closest to the feeling of creative satisfaction. Where are you, fiction thunderbolt?

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Every darn time!

2015-10-24T01:46:21Z

Every time the Steve Jobs film trailer commercial loops by on my TV, I hear that Mac start-up chime and leap six feet outta my chair thinking my computer must have just done a random shut down-restart and HEART ATTACK DON'T DO THAT.

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I see what I want (??) to see

2015-10-12T01:43:58Z

I saw Matilda: The Musical onstage and loved it. Until I saw it I didn't know that a male actor played Miss Trunchbull, nor that s/he would look and sound like the love child of the Red Skull and Arnim Zola, which I can honestly say is an MCU slash mpreg pairing I never once imagined.

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I blame all the tumblrs I surf that just aren't updating enough with things FOR ME.

2015-09-05T22:51:56Z

Is there a word for "the melancholy that affects you when all you yearn to do today is read/watch the sequel to the book/movie you are currently in love with, but it hasn't been written yet"? The Germans have to have a word for it 'cos they've got a word for everything.

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Loooove has found meeeeee, and IIIIIII have found the wayyyyyyy....

2015-09-04T00:48:49Z

I decided to watch a more-obscure Kurosawa flick that I got from Netflix, The Bad Sleep Well. Ten minutes into it I'm going, "Holy crap, that's Phil Moscowitz!" I had no idea the guy had an actual career!

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YoPLAIT!

2015-09-01T00:07:33Z

I am so ridiculously charmed by the Yoplait "25% less sugar" commercials with the Audrey Tautou lookalike. Every time it comes on TV I drop everything to run and watch and listen to that adorable exaggerated accent.

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Well, of course I'm going to look at the pictures TOO.

2015-07-14T01:16:21Z

So I stood in front of the checkout guy at Barnes & Noble and presented the July/August Playboy magazine (with the Jeremy Renner interview, of course) for purchase and said, "I really am buying this for the interview, I know everyone says that but I had the compulsion to tell you anyway even though I know it doesn't matter to you in the least," and happily he had a good sense of humor and giggled with me.

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Baby's First RPF

2015-07-10T10:49:43Z

Saw the Rifftrax of Sharknado 2 last night. I now 'ship Matt Lauer/Al Roker.

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Podfic of Don't Call It The Little Cherub Either

2015-07-07T10:26:25Z

I got podficced again, oh wow! This one lent itself well to audio, and the readers are GREAT, and it's got music and cover art!

Go listen!

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Tech stuff and SCIENCE!

2015-06-30T00:40:41Z

Thanks for the help with my Delicious troubles; the problem seems to be with my account, as I made a new one and that one adds links okay. I guess I'll keep the old one as an archive and use the new one for new links. Can't figure out why that's misbehaving, though!

Have observed that it's a cooler start to the summer where I live. I've decided to classify days as cool or warm depending on the solid or liquid state of my coconut oil.

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Did Delicious break for anyone else?

2015-06-29T01:38:46Z

Delicious just stopped working for me; I still use the previous.delicious.com version, because I could the new one simply would never add links for me, but now the previous version's stopped adding links too. Tried multiple browsers, added the bookmarklet, nothing's working. Doesn't work on iOS browsers either. Can still load the pages, sign in, all that--just can't add links anymore. Anyone else?

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amanuensis1 @ 2015-05-30T08:14:00

2015-05-30T12:18:21Z

All right, who failed to tell me there was a fabulous Jeremy Renner reference in the first five minutes of Birdman? I'd have seen it long before this!

(The fact that it won a Best Picture Oscar which essentially means everyone thought it was a movie worth seeing--not an excuse. Get with it, people.)

(And yes, Birdman was terrific.)

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(I did muster up the appropriate reaction a bit later.)

2015-05-09T01:29:59Z

Appropriate reaction to hearing Agent Carter got renewed: Hey yay what great news that was a great season and getting more Agent Carter is terrific and yay for female-helmed MCU storylines wheee!

My initial reaction to hearing Agent Carter got renewed: WHAT they told us it was going to be a self-contained miniseries and that was it I COMMITTED TO ONLY 8 EPISODES HOW DARE YOU TRICK ME LIKE THAT I WATCH TOO MUCH TELEVISION AS IT IS ALREADY

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Avengers: Age of Ultron second viewing

2015-05-03T21:23:11Z

I liked it better the second time around.

This time I went in without the first-time stress jitters, and this time I got to appreciate what a clever complex plot this was. Everything flows and goes just a teensy bit faster than what you anticipate, so that it's never talking down to you. I will always choose a "Keep up" plot over one where I can guess what's coming. *cough cough* nearly every other action movie on the planet *cough cough* I think it's as intricate as the story of The Avengers, but it's less joyful, darker. Ultron may be entertainingly bitchy but he's much more evil a villain than Loki the trickster. Different darker agenda. There couldn't be any funny end scene of the Avengers exhaustedly chomping down on shawarma in this one.

( More thoughts, with spoilers )

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