Mad Men Review: Out Of Town

17Aug09

SPOILER ALERT.

Season three, episode one got off to a great start. Sex, smoking, and Stoli — what more could you ask for in an episode?

Betty is still pregnant, and Don is still up to his old tricks. Although, Shelly the stewardess (I know, I know: “flight attendant”) is much different from his previous mistresses. His usual taste of dark-haired, strong-willed women seems to be absent from Shelly’s bubbly, naive personality. I don’t want to directly compare Betty to Shelly, but Betty’s very much the passive, wilting flower. However, we saw last season that she has something deep inside that’s aching to come out — she kicked Don out of the house, orchestrated the whole Sara Beth/Arthur affair, and had sex with that anonymous fellow in the bar; Betty isn’t entirely frail and helpless. Let’s hope this season she takes a step further in the girl-power direction.

(“She’s taken to your tools like a little lesbian.” WHAT THE FUCK.)

Ken and Pete are co-heads of accounts. Meh. Though I’m looking forward to seeing Ken shine, I’m NOT looking forward to slithery little Pete again. He was such a snake in season one. Season two, he got better and deeper with his family problems and I wound up NOT hating him by the season finale. But if he’s going to be a slimeball again, I’m going to wind up hating him all over again. Ugh! (Also, I hope we don’t see so damn much of Trudy. I cannot STAND her phony, gentry voice. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.)

And finally, Salvatore. Oh Sal! What ecstasy you were in when you made out with that cute bellhop! And don’t worry about Don seeing you. He’s a man of secrets himself — it wouldn’t be right for HIM to out you when he’s not who he says he is either.

All in all, a great episode. Totally worth missing True Blood.

Filed under: Television   |  1 Comment
Tags: Mad Men

Google Status and Send It

13Aug09

Don’t know if this is a “new” feature, but it’s new to me: I can add my own status to my Google Shared Items!

Simply click “Shared items” in your Google Reader side panel and add your thoughts in the little speech bubble. It’s almost like an unofficial “status” or microblog (which it might as well be, considering Google Shared Items is almost a tumblelog).

Google did unveil a flurry of features for Google Reader today, including a few awesome Send To features. Now you can send your shared items to about half-a-dozen blogs/social networks — you don’t have to just email it, either:

We’ve made it easier to share posts you like to Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and more, with our new “Send to” feature…Just head over to the settings page, and enable the services you want to use. If your favorite service isn’t listed (and you’re feeling extra geeky), you can create your own “Send to” link with a URL template.

As they said, you can add your own network/blog as well. For instance, Posterous fans (like myself) can add shared items to their Posterous blog using their own handy guide.

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Tags: Google Reader, Google Shared Items, Posterous

Facebook Buys Friendfeed?!?

10Aug09

Whoa.

The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team. We’ve always been great admirers of Facebook, and our companies share a common vision.

No! Say it isn’t so! Not Friendfeed! (Techcrunch has more of the story.)

I love Friendfeed. I used it to get away from the stupid quizzes and inane ramblings of Facebook. In fact, I was looking into replacing Facebook with Friendfeed in the near future. But now that they’re becoming one, I fear Friendfeed is going to be vacuumed up by the great big vortex of suck.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe this is a good thing. Not sure how, but I’ll be hopeful. Kind of.

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Tags: Facebook, FriendFeed

Book Review: Little Children

08Aug09

Little Children by Tom Perrotta

I made the mistake of seeing the film version of Little Children before I read the book. When I did read the novel, I kept picturing all the characters as the actors in the movie. (I don’t think that Jennifer Connelly is prettier than Kate Winslet, not at all.) We get to learn a lot more about the character’s backgrounds, which explains why Todd and Sarah are so needy and self-absorbed.

In the book, there are two huge differences that couldn’t be worked out in the movie. First is Sarah’s husband, Richard. His plot is much more fleshed out than his movie character. He’s an inattentive husband and father who is obsessed with “Slutty Kay,” an amateur internet porn star. He eventually goes out to meet Slutty Kay – something that’s not in the movie at all.

Second, Ronnie McGorvey. He’s a lot more sinister in the book. In fact, the movie’s ending is COMPLETELY different with McGorvey’s plot. In the movie, I felt sorry for him; in the book, I wanted to castrate him and nail his severed penis to the school wall (reference!). The book also refers to a missing girl who McGorvey may or may not have something to do with. All in all, the McGorvey of Little Children the movie is far more likable and sympathetic than McGorvey in the book.

To my surprise, I had another book by Tom Perrotta on my bookshelf already: Election! I completely forgot that he wrote one of my favorite novels! How silly of me!

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Tags: movie adaptations, reviews

Book Review: The Scar

08Aug09

The Scar by China Mieville

I was very impressed with this book. Not only was it much better than Perdido Street Station (the first in the New Crobuzon series), but it was an amazing book on it’s own. That is, you don’t have to read PDS in order to understand what’s going on in The Scar.

Mieville is a very talented writer. He’s descriptive, lyrical, and whimsical. He can describe a violent massacre on board a ship with beautiful prose. He does get carried away with descriptions (not as bad as Robert Jordan, thankfully), but for the most part he’s able to switch things up before I start getting bored.

I liked Bellis a lot, too. It’s rare that you read a book with a female protagonist written by a male that does not use her sexuality to maneuver through the story. Bellis is almost asexual — yes, she does have sex with another male character but she’s not exuding sensual prowess. I wasn’t too thrilled with Tanner Sack and Shekel at first, but their characters got better as the book went on. Tanner Sack became very three-dimensional and complex toward the end.

But the greatest character is Uther Doul. He’s very much the tall, dark, and mysterious type that hovers in the background. His background was very vague and puzzling, but that kept me interested. Furthermore, his connection with the Lovers (two very bizarre and curious characters in their own right) is very interesting. If he could have his own book, I’d read it in a heartbeat.

The next book in the series is Iron Council. That’ll be read soon, of course.

(I also wrote a poem inspired by this book at my journal.)

Filed under: Books   |  2 Comments
Tags: review, China Mieville, science fiction

“Swayze smokes dope to ease pain”

08Aug09

via DailyTelegraph:

AFTER finding it hard to eat and feeling so weak, Patrick Swayze is using marijuana as he battles aggressive pancreatic cancer, it has been claimed.

I’m reminded of my grandmother who took synthetic THC in the form of Marinol for her Parkinson’s disease. It helped her appetite quite a bit so she could keep food down and gain a little bit of weight (she was 80 pounds when she died). Of course, Marinol was horribly expensive and my grandfather and mother would pay out the ass for a month’s supply. My mom had to trick my grandmother into taking it, because when she explained what it was my grandmother would freak out.

My heart goes out to Mr. Swayze and his family — as well as everyone suffering from a terminal illness.

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Tags: cancer, marijuana, THC

RIP John Hughes

07Aug09

I was only a wee ‘un in the 80’s, but I still did appreciate the humor and angst in John Hughes’ films in the years to come. I was saddened when I heard about his sudden death yesterday. My thoughts go out to his loved ones.

Jezebel honors the late director with 5 Movies John Hughes Will Be Remembered For. My favorite of all of these is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, followed closely by The Breakfast Club.

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Tags: death, John Hughes

Entitlement FTL

04Aug09

Entitlement Society: Grad Can’t Find Job, Sues Her College For Tuition Back

Apparently, the fact that we’re in one of the worst economic downturns in ages doesn’t come into play. Or the fact that what you learn in college (hopefully) lasts a lifetime. To this woman, the fact that she hasn’t been able to find a job in four months means she deserves her entire tuition back?

Wow. I feel really bad for this woman. I mean, I don’t agree with suing your college for the tuition back (especially when you’ve only graduated four months ago), but I can totally relate to her frustration. I’ve often thought about how much money I’ve spent in tuition and fees and wonder if my college education is really going to get me anywhere in life. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

Again, no — she’s wrong to sue. But I understand.

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Tags: college, jobs, recession, unemployment

Movie Review: Public Enemies

02Aug09

Went and saw Public Enemies this weekend. I hovered between wanting to see it and not wanting to see it, but ultimately my husband and I decided that it would be now or never. So we went.

I’m not sure why I wanted to see this movie. I don’t like gangster movies, I don’t like bank robbery movies, I don’t like biopic movies. I don’t even like Johnny Depp all that much, either. And though it turned out to be pretty decent (in terms of a gangster-bank robbery biopic with Johnny Depp), it wasn’t the best movie I’ve seen in theaters all year. I don’t know what it was about this movie that made it so meh. The acting was decent, the action was decent. Of course, it wasn’t the true story of John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, or “Pretty Boy” Floyd, but hell — Hollywood’s job isn’t to educate, it’s to entertain.

It could have been better, but I’ve seen a lot worse (ahem Watchmen and Terminator: Salvation).

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Tags: bank robberies, gangster, John Dillinger, Public Enemies

New Delicious Username

30Jul09

In an attempt to consolidate all my social book-net-mark-working sites, I’ve changed my Delicious username to nscaletti. I’ve had my delicious account under the name “pandora” for five years now, but luckily the export/import features of Delicious make it look like I’ve had my new account for that long too. =)

So, once again:

• Old Delicious account: pandora.
• New Delicious account: nscaletti.

Carry on.

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Tags: Delicious