Spawn's dad

I did. Mentioning Bill Bryson to someone prompted the recommendation for Wandering Home. well that and how I was going on and on about the light in the Adirondacks. Apparently I am not the first to note the magic of it, as proven by McKibben.

 

Wasn't the quote something along the lines of "read a book by a guy who actually walked somewhere?"

So, you're the one person who watches Imus?

dunno. I just tune in for his interviews. They're frequently pretty good, with today as evidence.

They're promoting their DVD

COLLISION: Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson

This might not be true for all Mets fans, but the ones who live in South Florida are amongst the most arrogant, stupid, and obnoxious people I've ever encountered. Same with the Jets. They tend to be the same people, and they are worse than any Yankees fans I've encountered.

 

At one Marlins-Mets game I counted the guy behind me bitch about people getting out of their seats over 50 times. He was the most obnoxious person I've ever seen at a game. At least it gave me and my friends something to laugh at. "This would never happen at Shea!"

That's because most of their fans are from long island.

Apparently on the list is not seeing Ction and not going to Horace and Dickies.

Ben's Chili Bowl was on Man vs. Food last night.

I want one of those fish sandwiches he ate

if you have time, you could stop by and visit...ummm...me...only if you have a chance of course.

Ction has me on a pretty tight schedule. Maybe next time.

Ben's Chili Bowl was on Man vs. Food last night.

have it DVRed and am going to watch it tonight

Anything worth seeing or eating in DC besides the obvious tours of political institutions? Might be in town this weekend.

We should get to work on the next one

In the great green room...

Yeah, nothing changes at all. Oh - except for the hero's view of the world and his perspective of the human condition.

He has a dream or shroom experience of a bunch of angry dysfunctional monsters and when he realizes his imagination sucks as bad as his life he's suddenly ok with his mother ignoring him for her job or when she's trying to score with some guy? At 8, 9, 10?

i am starting to think i am a prude.

agreed

I loved the movie, and so did the kids. The only time they got a little scared was a short part at the very beginning, but other than that they loved it.. There were times I thought they got a little bored, but after the movie they started telling me about all of their favorite parts so I knew they were paying attention.

 

 

 

SPOILER ALERT

 

Nothing happened? Nothing is explained? You must have missed the whole point of the movie.. It's very metaphorical. It's about a kid that is making the transition from a child to an adult and all of the confusion that comes with that.. The whole movie is seen through Max's eyes.. The monster island is a dream world that Max created. It's just like when you dream, you will see little bits and pieces of things that have happened in your day. For example; the snowball fight at the beginning is represented on monster island with the dirt fight.. Seeing the giant dog in the desert, that's Max's dog.. When Max is in the in the "monster pile", it's the same as when he was in the igloo and the kid jumped on it to cave it in. It's a very deep film and I thought it was brilliant.

how old is Max? Spawn thought 3rd or 4th grade. That isn't a period of transition into adulthood. So if that's what it's about it's no wonder it missed the mark.

I'm a big fan of the book as well, but sadly I don't think it translated well into a feature-length movie.

Other than a kid in a wolf costume the movie had nothing to do with the book. I mean, christ, it was a, what, 15 page picture book? In fact, most of the posts in this thread had significantly more words than the book.

I am interested in why. I really hate it when someone makes a statement like this and offers no statements to back it up. Not to say that your opinion is wrong, but it is invalid because you make no attempt to expound on your statement.

 

I am trying to get as much information on this movie as possible to make an informed decision on whether I should take my five year old.

I wouldn't take a five year old to see that. They're either going to be bored or freaked out. In either event it's clearly not worth the money for that. Once I got over the fact that tony soprano was an angry children's book character I found myself hoping Sil would make an appearance, KW would strip, and then they'd whack Douglas. Mostly I was bored enough to be enraptured by these thoughts so methinks it wasn't such a great flick. Spawn liked it though.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,"Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and pilesof black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use mybathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

 

And I'm not posting in this thread, I'm just typing and hitting 'Post'.

Why does he keep his black friends in piles? Are they neat piles, or more like pickup sticks? Are the piles better tended to than his heaps of Mexican landscapers?

And nothing personal, but I wouldn't let any of you use my bathroom.

I worked really hard to form that comment without cynicism. My first reaction was quite a bit less diplomatic.

 

Strange days, these.

I'm not going to worry about my unemployment any longer. Clearly these are the end times.

One can only hope he lives up to the the prize.

Usually you get them after you do something, not in the hope you will.

Well now that he's a Nobel prize winner the Dalai Lama has got nothing on him.

I could very well state here that all of the others are fucked-up morons unable to write on the subject.

wait. we're fucked up morons because we see rape as rape, irregardless of age, can't quite wrap our heads around a woman (or girl) holding any responsibility for it despite how provocative or slutty they may dress, and really don't feel the need to nuance the degrees or wrongness when one violates someone sexually who they hold emotional or physical power over. sign me up for being a moron.

I feel like a lack of argument.

Really? Did you piece that together all by yourself?

You're either a troll, or an imbecile. In either case your post doesn't warrant argument, just highlighting as a sad and ignorant point of view.

I disagree. Rape is rape, but there are different sorts of rapes, and different sorts of sentences required to these. It's obviously worse to rape a 10 years old girl than a 30 years old one. Unless the 30 years old one is handicaped or something. It's worse to rape with violence than with psychological pressure. And yes, a girl who's been sexually provocative is an attenuating circumstance to me (but I don't say it's been the case with Samantha Gailey).

 

If you claim that girls aren't responsible for provoking rape when they're sexually attractive, then you totally dismiss the power of the sexual pulsions. The sexual world is a big part of the human life. The raping pulsion takes part of the sexual game. It belongs to any of us to deal carefully with it. To men, and to girls.

 

Polanski is totally responsible of what happened. But HOW did it really happen? That's the only question I have no answer to. And the facts we know (alcohol, drugs, sodomy) aren't helping in any way. There are just shocking words thrown like these, that don't tell the reality of how the things happen. That's what I tried to say with my idea of movie describing the circumstances. That's probably why some movies were done in the first place: to describe a reality that's far more complex than a final judgement.

 

We don't live with the law in mind. We don't live with logic or under a social contract. At least I, for one, don't - bless my soul.

^This is fucking retarded. You're way too stupid to be a Wilco fan.

Well said, which is why I deleted the original post shortly after posting it - my heart wasn't in it. Unfortunately, I was not quick enough. Great post, and I agree with ALMOST every point you've made.

The existence of the Olympics is predicated upon our ability to communicate – I mean, otherwise, how would we even schedule that shit? The fact that we document our history through the use of books such as the one you’ve recommended, sort of makes my point for me. In fact, it could be argued that our ability to fictionalize such things makes it possible to do away with sports entirely. For an example, see Don DeLillo’s Pafko at the Wall, probably the most exciting bit of sports writing I’ve ever come across.

 

But again, to get back to my original point, one’s ability to launch a heavy round ball through space, further than just about anyone, doesn’t give that person the right to behave like an asshole when not throwing that really heavy ball downfield, just because he or she can – which was my original point.

No, it doesn't really make your point. The athletic achievement is greater than the book. The fact that Michael Jackson diddled little boys all but negates anything he did for me, but countless people defend his body of work as separate from his life. The fact that your hero killed himself, for me, casts a pale on his work but for you that isn't the case. No one said it gave anyone the right to act anyway at all. Artists, doctors, lawyers, athletes, ice cream men, all make incredible achievements in their particular areas. All should have to conform to the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior. None of that negates the inspiration or boundaries expanded by the achievement of pushing the body and mind in the pursuit of athletic achievement. I wouldn't want a doctor working on my car. I didn't want Charles Barkley being my kid's role model. But when it comes to trying to put everything you have into one focused endeavor you'd be hard pressed to fictionalize a better metaphor.

The analogy doesn’t hold given that language and the written word, the ability to express the entire gamut of human emotions, our defining ability as humans...

holy, I'm right and you're wrong batman!

Do you really not see that for many many many people the pursuit of athletic achievement expresses that very thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yvkT2uMnIY

There's even this thing called the Olympics....

A great book on the very subject

I'm pretty sure he was mid txt message. Sigh. Tweeners. Next few years should be a party.