Quote of the day

"it's a weird focus. at one point in the deeper pit of "meaning of life" hell i remember dragging myself around to get groceries at 3 in the morning and the checkout girl says "hi how are you?" and i say "hello" and she says "here you go, have a nice night", and i suddenly can't remember the words for "goodbye" or "thanks" anymore and hear myself saying "hello" again as i leave."

-- Don Hertzfeldt talking to David Lowry about the intensity of his work process. The whole interview is excellent, honestly, but that passage jumped out at me. (Via Girish.)

The joy of irony #2

I'm not an enthusiast or anything, but I have been becoming increasingly fond of karaoke. Some family members and I went out to a local place to go perform some karaoke last night; as I've become more comfortable with the performance aspect (shaky voice be damned), I got up and sang four tunes. The last of these was "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," but the company putting it on didn't have the Dylan version, only an Eric Clapton cover version I'd never heard before. I figured I'd give it a spin anyway; turns out it was a more uptempo, bluesy version with a more drawn-out call-and-response structure. I still nailed it pretty well, I think, but that's not the noteworthy part. Here's what struck me: As I'm singing, an older couple gets into the rhythm, gets out of their chairs and starts romantically waltzing to the tune. Good for them, I guess, but I never really thought of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" as a slowdance song. Something about lines like, "Goodbye's too good a word for you, babe, so I'll just say fare thee well," don't really make me want to dance with my lady. But maybe that's just me.

I also tore into Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name," thereby blowing out my voice for the next day or two, but that's something else. Now if only someone out there will put "Bombs Over Baghdad" in their karaoke catalog...

Closed captioning: A heretofore-unacknowledged peril of fame

Hey, remember that nothing news story a couple weeks back about Charlie Sheen becoming the highest-paid sitcom star on TV for that obnoxious show he does? You know, the one with That Weedy Geek from the '80s and The Other, Now-Unexpectedly-Mega-Lustworthy Chick from Heavenly Creatures?

That story, believe it or not, opened my eyes to Ray Romano's secret life as a sexual terrorist. No, really.

Here's what happened: I was waiting for lunch and The Fox News Channel was on a nearby telly, sound off and closed-captions on. (This, of course, is the only circumstances under which I'll even glance at Fox News.) They're doing a quick rundown of this who-gives story and talking about how Sheen's big payday still doesn't put him among the ranks of the dudes from "Friends" or Ray Romano at the height of their respective shows' popularity. The closed captioning mangled all the proper names, as it tends to do. What I didn't expect was the editorial message that came along with Romano's name -- his moniker came out as RAY RAPE OR MONO.

Who knew Ray was such a mean guy? "Either you let me rape you, or I'm gonna infect you with mono. That's how it is, baby. Choose wisely." All things considered, I think I'd go with the mono. At least it's not the syph.

The joy of irony

I saw a personalized license plate on the highway the other day that amused me. Apparently, the driver of the vehicle, a woman, wanted her opinion on the relative intelligence of men and women to be known to all. And she'd decided to use her plate as a forum for this. What amused me was the combination of letters she came up with. Here's the plate:

WMNRSMTR

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "I am so smart! S-M-A-T!"

Radio silence

Some of you may have noticed a distinct lack of activity on my part, both here and at The OCE. Um.... sorry about that. Part of it is attributable to the half-dozen reviews that I have to write for Blogcritics and haven't (if any PR people are reading this, I'm sorry... please don't be pissed off at me), and part of it is because I've been both working more than usual and socializing more than usual. But there's another aspect: I really haven't had much to say lately. Oh well, what the hell...

I'll wander back eventually, promise.