The Gimcrack Miscellany

I took some pictures of our cat, mainly to test out my camera, but I couldn’t resist turning them into LOLCatz pictures. They may not be as funny as some of the ones on I Can Has Cheezburger but I think they’re amusing.

Check out my coworker Brad’s blog. I’m hoping that somehow my wife will somehow accidentally stumble upon my blog, somehow come across this blog post somehow, somehow happen to click the link to Brad’s blog somehow, and somehow accidentally coincidentally scroll down and see the pictures of his beagle “Bella”, and then somehow want to go buy one for us somehow, coincidentally.

I have to admit, I was surprised by how well my bro logged his adventures with a window salesman. I know he speaks for all people, anywhere, ever, in the history of the world, who have ever dealt with any kind of salesman, ever created, when he describes the utter agony of dealing with this guy, anywhere, at any point in time… ever created….. anywhere.

Read ‘The Glassman Cometh’ now!

You shouldn’t write posts like this because they become completely dated in like a month. You’ve seen these brand new movies, heard these brand new songs, or found this awesome brand new technology, but you forget about when you discovered LaserDiscs and you wrote a post about it as if you had discovered gold (of course, you have to assume a ‘blog post’ had been invented at that time - use your imagination, geez). If I followed my own rule, then this post, among pretty much all the rest of my posts, was a bad idea.

I’ll just get right to it. Here’s some recent movies that I highly recommend. The title non-aptly indicates that these movies all came out in 2007, but that might not be true.

Ocean’s 13

Way better than Ocean’s 12, almost as good as Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 13 takes you back into a casino - thank goodness. As I recall, 12 took place in Europe with thieves and diamonds and golden eggs and houses on hydraulic under-water jacks and Julia Roberts playing an actor who was portraying the real Julia Ro - blah, blah, blah. 13 thankfully gets rid of “Tess” (Julia Roberts’ character) and focuses on the banter among Danny’s crew and the inner workings of a state of the art casino in Las Vegas. Pacino is great as the casino owner and gives you someone to hate, which usually makes for a good movie. Go see it! It’s worth the $8.75, unless you’re reading this from one of the coasts, in which case it’s still worth the $20 that you’re gonna spend to see it.

Shrek the Third

Again, way better than Shrek 2, and just as good if not better than Shrek I, Shrek 3 is full to the brim with jokes and satirical situations involving popular characters that Disney loves to make movies about. We get to see what happens when you put Show White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty in a room together. It’s a crazy whirlwind of jealousy-ridden arguments involving fashion and pop culture, and it’s not too different from what happens when you put my wife and her three sisters in a room together. The ginger bread man shines, as does puss ‘n boots, and the dream sequence with Shrek and a bunch of ogre babies is one of the funniest moments in all the Shrek universe. I’m buying this one as soon as I get a chance.

Pan’s Labyrinth

I loved everything about this film - from the look and feel, to the intriguing magic of the story, to the amazing acting and directing. I’ve talked to a lot of people who did not like this film, and I am absolutely not recommending it to kids as it contains a lot of frightening imagery, but I think it is an absolutely excellent movie, and I think that anyone who didn’t like it is shallow and unsophisticated, and I also think I’m ignorant for saying that, but I just don’t care. I’m not going to go into the story too much because I’m waiting on LITS to write a post on it, as Arthur seems like he knows a lot about it (people always think they’re experts when they watch the DVD bonus features). Hint, hint, Arthur - I’ll be looking for your post, and I’ll link to it from this post when you’ve completed it. If you don’t write it, you’ll be letting all my readers down. I’m sorry in advance, my precious readers, if Arthur fails you on this one. I’ve done all I can.

There you have it. If you haven’t seen these flicks, go rent them and watch them in this order: Pan’s Labyrinth, then Shrek the Third, and finally Ocean’s 13. I don’t know why, but that just seems like the right order. You wouldn’t eat cheesecake, then a steak, and finally a lobster bisque would you? Don’t answer that.

Update: Art wrote the post I requested. Thanks, Art!

But don’t worry, it’s back up now - minus a few of my most recent posts (namely the one about the seatbelt checkpoints).

What happened?

I host my own blog, which means my database is separate from the Wordpress blog sea. So, if I lose my database I’m SOL. Guess what - I lost my database. Actually, my web host lost my database and has been apologizing profusely, saying something about it not being… well, I’ll let you read what my support tech said, as he has put it so extraordinarily well:

Hi Brain, any database which does not in client’s list will be removed my our system periodically. I’ve added it to your list therefore it should not happen again.

That’s a verbatim copy/paste from my help ticket. I really love how he compliments my wit by calling me “Brain”. It sure does make me feel real good knowing people like this are taking care of my precious blog posts.. I know, I know, he’s probably not so much “dumb” as he is “Pakistani”, but it’s fun to throw jabs at someone who caused me to lose my blog for almost a week. His salutation made everything better:

Let us know if you get problem.
Thanks!

Will do, my main man Habeeb, will do.