The Middle Years (2006-2009)

On the first (or fifth) of March, on the holiday.

Dreamgirls is shot Bill Condon style - lots that reminded me of Chicago. Or is that just because there are so few movie musicals these days? In any case, for an avid, avowed Motown fan such as myself, Dreamgirls was a great exercise in spot-the-parallels (ooh, and just as I typed that, the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go?” came on): the Dreamgirls = the Supremes, Curtis Taylor Jr. = Berry Gordy etc. etc. (although obviously it isn’t a direct adaptation, and Paramount has been careful to make clear that it’s a fictionalised account).

Iceberg lettuce safe (via Popgadget) Zodiac looks v promising. Here’s a 6-6-6 tribute to David Fincher via Kottke: 6 of his best commercials, 6 of his best music videos, and his 6 feature films. Still can’t believe Mitch Hedberg died so young. Here Jesse Kornbluth reviews Hedberg. Mixed race, pretty face?

So I was reading about “Conservapedia” in the Guardian, and this part on the ’liberal bias’ of Wikipedia amused me: Among his criticisms listed on Conservapedia, Mr Schlafly explains how many Wikipedia articles often use British spelling instead of American English and says that it “refuses” to give enough credit to Christianity for the Renaissance.

Was searching around for pics of the “I Love New York” logo to show how the Singapore Day 2007 “I Love Sg” logo uses the totally wrong typeface if it’s intending to be a play on Milton Glaser’s famous logo. Okay, so not everyone has American Typewriter (or the variant that Glaser used) but surely one could use a Courier typewriter-style font.

Old friend Baratunde Thurston has a funny post up on how any post criticising Macs - even by Mac users themselves - seems to bring out zealots in full force.

So I turned 29 over the weekend (on ren ri, no less). 29, a prime number for a decade supposedly marking one’s prime. It’s the kind of birthday age I guess in which one takes stock. Not that I’m going to reveal my thoughts to all and sundry on the Internet! But I still can’t believe I’m not 21 sometimes. Or 2.9. Met up with friends and we talked about how in college, the possible paths one’s life could take were so varied. And with each year I guess the choices narrow. Not that that’s bad, but it’s different.

Finally managed to upgrade my Blogger blogs (apparently dsng.net had too many posts to upgrade previously!) So here are some links. Why do we think good writers should have good morals? In-n-Out Burger’s Secret Menu. The hidden obscenity on Bill Ripken’s Fleer baseball card.

Change your horn sound! Actually, I always thought it would be nice if there was also a “friendly” horn - something that you could press to indicate “hey, you left your signal on” or such without inspiring the instinctive annoyance that regular horns do.

I guess the Weekly Standard is bearable when it’s pontificating on Civilisation (or, okay, Civilization) as a game. Man, I loved that game.

And where did the holiday go? A nice long weekend, too much of which was spent working, unfortunately. Although I did manage to install this nifty Dashboard widget so that I can post straight from Dashboard.

And, in the grand tradition of watching stuff on TV that’s utterly unrelated to the festive occasion because that’s what the broadcasters choose to show… here’s the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible site, with an awesome live version of “Guns of Brixton” (click on the “guns” link).

Watched (and re-watched) Nicole Holofcener’s Friends With Money this week. It’s good. A film for grown-ups (as one friend told me), and that’s always good. Although I have to say Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand, and Joan Cusack act rings around Jennifer Aniston. How good is Keener? I can’t think of a film I’ve disliked her in. Although I admit I didn’t watch S1m0ne.

Grammies last night. The Eagles tribute. Lionel Ritchie. Apparently they were going to party like it was 1979. But boy, I love Smokey and “Tracks Of My Tears” is one hell of a song. Anyway, on to the links.

Just dumping all my surfing into one place for reference at another time… Anna Nicole Smith gets shunned by Mexia, her hometown. That reminds me of the joke about Mexia: Two Aggies pass through Mexia, arguing over the correct pronunciation of the city (one arguing for “muh-hay-uh” – the proper pronunciation; the other insisting on “mex-ee-uh” – the incorrect one). They stop in at a local eating establishment to settle the matter, asking, “how do you pronounce the name of this place?” The waitress responds, very slowly, “Deh-ree Kween.” The Painted Veil deserves some Oscar noms, says the NY Times. If you want to join the Mile High Club… apparently it’s not against FAA regulations 24 has a deleterious effect on soldiers. I’ve mentioned the Tesla Roadster before, but sadly according to the website it’s sold out for 2007. *marks 2008 down in calendar*. Ads for tampons, razors, pregnancy test kits etc. get a lot less squeamish. I hope that trend hits Singapore - these ads for sanitary pads with cartoon fairies that I see on buses always seem so twee. (Do fairies get periods, in any case?)

There’s always something bizarre to learn about Japan, I think. Such as the fact that they have manga/anime characters to depict operating systems. (Via AsiaPundit.) The OS-tans are an internet phenomenon in Japan where the OS-tan (or OS Girls) are the personification of several Windows operating systems.

This Austin360.com article on the trend of increasing compression on CDs (thanks to people mastering CDs to the maximum) and the clipping it creates is pretty good reading for audiophiles.

The craziest part of the story about the astronaut arrested for trying to kidnap and assault her love rival is the fact that she had adult diapers so that she didn’t need to stop for anything.

To the man cave! (And apologies to Woolf for the post title.) The Boston Globe discusses the increasingly popular concept of specialised spaces for guys within the home - although one could argue this was just an upgraded den. Come to think of it, I already have a room with turntables, DVDs, and a pool table…

Didn’t watch the Superbowl - couldn’t bear to see the Colts, not after what they did to the Patriots - but this was a good commercial from GM, featuring one sad robot.