The SportsGal on "Brangelina"

Warning: the meat of this post is actually someone else's thoughts. And before you read it, there are two things you should know:

1. I love reading articles by Bill Simmons, aka the SportsGuy. He writes from a fan's perspective, throws in a lot of random pop culture references, and constantly makes fun of things. Perfect reading, as far as I'm concerned. And on his weekly football picks, his wife writes a little blurb and makes her football picks as well. Her writing's still new to me, but I'm pretty sure I'd like her if I met her...
2. I have a love-hate relationship with the melding of names of celebrity couples, such as Bennifer (versions 1 and 2), Brangelina, TomKat and Vaughniston. I love anything that allows me to cut out syllables*, but I hate that we now have to do it for every couple and that it's a little, well, smarmy, I guess. Just a weird thing for fans to do. But, the saving of syllables, and in the case of typing, keystrokes, is enough to warrant my using Brangelina in the title. Just know that I hate myself a little for doing it.

And now for the post - I just read this in the SportsGal's comments for the week, and I thought it was great. Totally true for me, too. And I really hope I'm not breaking any copywrite laws or anything by reposting - but I found this at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/061221 on 12/24/06. Maybe that semi-citation can keep me from getting sued. Here goes:

"I used to really like Angelina Jolie. Ever since she starred in "Gia," I admired her flawless natural beauty, as well as the many character flaws that made her more likable and less threatening overall. Maybe she was a recovering drug addict, a cutter, a brother kisser, and a blood vial-wearing skank who looked like she showered once a week, but she didn't care what others thought and was totally comfortable going out in public without tons of makeup on. So that made her likable, at least to me. Even when she married Billy Bob Thornton, who's absolutely disgusting, I didn't hold it against her.

Then everything changed: She adopted Maddox, became a goodwill ambassador, started making normal movies and slowly made everyone forget that she was crazy. Next, she seduced and stole the husband of one of the most likable female celebs, adopted another baby with her stolen man, then had his biological child months before his divorce was even done. Now she travels all over the world in private jets wasting fuel and pretending to do nice things when we all know she's really a husband-stealing witch. But what really turned me into a full fledged Angelina hater was this month's Vogue article about her, with Angelina smugly pushing for peace talks between her and Jennifer Aniston, even having the gall to say, "That would be her decision, and I would welcome it." If I were Jennifer Aniston, I would welcome it, too. Then I would meet Angelina for lunch and repeatedly smash a chair over her head."

Yay, SportsGal!

*My friends would tell you that the syllable thing is true. I pronounce DSW (the shoe store) dis-wuh and routinely refere to GWU, or the George Washington University, as gwoo. Much easier.

Random Thoughts (but not by Jack Handy)

The past week and half has been pretty busy, and my blog has suffered for it. In addition to shopping for Christmas and Chanukah gifts (or Chrismahanukwanzasolstibirthdaykah gifts, as I like to call them), work's been busy with year-end stuff, and I seem to have had plans on several evenings, which is not the norm. Isn’t it weird how you can go weeks without making dinner plans and then all of a sudden you’re out 4 nights in a row? I guess that’s just how it works...

So instead of any single theme or idea in this post, here are my random stories and thoughts from the week:

This past weekend, I went with some friends to Charlottesville, VA for the UVA-Hampton basketball game. The new John Paul Jones arena is pretty cool, but the game wasn’t all that exciting. My roommate and I did have an interesting food experience, though. I’m not that great at typing out complicated stories, but let me just say that if you order cinnamon pretzel bites at a UVA basketball game, beware of the cinnamon goo that squirts out of either end. There is absolutely NO way to eat one without goo squirting out somewhere. It just cannot be done.

My favorite comedian, George Carlin, has a list of people he “could do without” that he has used in his stand-up routine (check it out here: http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/25483/George_Carlin_People_I_Can_Do_Without.html ). It includes a variety of people: “a proctologist with poor depth perception,” “guys in their 50’s named Skip,” “a funeral director who says ‘hope to see you again real soon’,” and others. I think I would add movie critics and music critics. I mean, isn’t anyone who listens to music or watches movies a critic? What makes them better at deciding what’s good and what’s not? And why should I care what some guy I’ve never met thinks about the new Kanye West song? I’m pretty sure I’m capable of making my own decision about whether or not I like a song.

The title of this post made me think of the old “Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy” on SNL. I loved them so much that one time I bought a book of them – but now I don’t know where it is. Luckily, the trusty old Internet is very helpful – there’s the official site: http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/ and several unofficial ones. When you’re bored, you should check it out.

Ok, I think that’s it for now. Sorry for the posting delay, and hopefully I’ll have some better ones up soon. In the meantime, Happy last couple days of Chanukah and hope everyone that celebrates Christmas has a wonderful holiday on Monday! Happy holidays!

On a scale of 1-10, what's a 5?

While I was in grad school, I participated one of those medical experiment things for money at the suggestion of a friend who worked at the National Institute of Health. I don’t really remember what the research was looking at, but it involved me being in an MRI, looking at some patterns on a screen and receiving slight shocks on the inside of my wrist. In order for the doctors to figure out what level they should set the shocker-thing at (as you can see, I’m definitely not a scientist), they asked me to rate different shocks on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being not painful at all, and 10 being as painful as I could imagine. They never got near the 10 range – not even to the 5 – but I thought the whole scale thing was ridiculous.

As far as pain goes, what’s a 10? If it’s the worst pain imaginable – well, I can imagine a lot of really painful things. Things to graphic to put in a blog. And there’s no way that a shock they would use in an out-patient experiment open to the public would come anywhere close to that pain. And if a 10 is the most painful I can imagine, what’s a 5? Half of the most painful thing? Maybe a rating of 5 is something like having my knee bent backward or dislocating my shoulder. The problem is, I have no idea – the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me is a kidney stone, and it hurt pretty bad, but I can imagine a lot worse. So is that a 7? A 3? There has to have been a better way for them to measure that, but I don’t know what it was.

And that’s not the only problem I have with rating scales. It doesn’t have any affect on my life or anything, but it annoys me that for me, the logical “average” of a 1-10 rating scale is 5 or 6 (5.5 to be more accurate), but other people think it’s a 7. Maybe people assume that scale of 1-10 is the same thing as giving grades – 9 or 10 is an A, 8 is a B, 7 is a C (or average), 6 is a D and 5 and below are failing.

Here’s an example: It’s a common thing for people to discuss other people and rate their looks, but again, what’s a 5 in this situation? The way I think of it, on a scale of 1-10, 5.5 is right in the middle, so 5.5 should be average. 10 would be pretty much perfect – someone like Brad Pitt or Halle Berry in perfect lighting with perfect makeup and just the right outfit (not that those two necessarily need it). So if I were rating guys, even very good-looking ones, I might give out 8s and 9s, and definitely some 5s, 6s and 7s, but probably not many 9.5s or 10s, because perfection’s hard to achieve. But those same people could possibly be insulted by a 6, even though for me that means above average. For people who use rating scales like grades, they could give a high 7 or an 8 to someone I might rate at a 6, which skews the “scores.”

Like I said, doesn’t really have much to do with my life, but it’s just one of those little things that occasionally sticks in my brain.

* If you’ve ever seen the ads for one of those “Rate my Picture” sites on the Internet*, maybe you get what I’m saying… one such site: www.ratingmylooks.com

Board Game Frustration

I love board games. I don't play them that often, because they usually work best for groups of people and most of my time is spent in the company of one or two of my roommates and my dog, but I definitely enjoy them when I get the chance.

Although we have a decent selection at my house right now - Taboo, a couple Trivial Pursuits, Scene It, Scattergories, etc - I wouldn't mind adding to the collection. The problem is that they take up too much space.

And what bothers me even more is that many of these games could just be made as extender packs that come in much smaller packaging and just use the boards from previous games. Does every new version of Trivial Pursuit really need its own board? I mean, how hard could it be to make a new set of cards using the same colors and pie pieces as the original, but with a new theme? Do I really need a 12x12x4 box for Trivial Pursuit 90's Edition, 20th Century Edition, 80's Edition, Genus IV edition, and on and on and on?

When Scene-It came out, I thought it was finally going to be the game to capitalize on the extender pack theory. And they've done more than many of the other games, but I still wish they'd do more. They have a Movie Edition Sequel Pack, and HBO and Turner Classic Movies expansion packs, but they have separate board games only for the TV, Friends, WB 50th Anniversary and Nickelodeon editions. At least the Scene It people sort of have the right idea...

Now, I know it probably has something to do with the profit margin. Game makers can charge more ($30 - $40) for a new game than they could for just the new DVD & card portion, but you'd think they could offer both - the new board and game for people who don't have it yet, and a somewhat cheaper version for those of us that already have the board part. Wouldn't that be nice?

I guess it's just another thing I'll have to fix when I take over the world...