Maybe it's the script, and the late hour. And both count. But Jason Scott Lee acts circles around Ben Affleck. Why isn't Joey Lauren Adams up among the constellations? The Big Dipper, Orion, Taurus, Pisces, Joey Lauren Adams.

Drama law
Fixing development problems right and left. I feel like a jukebox hero.

Uh, also reminding self to not be sloppy with code. That would conserve drama.

There should be a law regarding drama. I mean a physical law. The Law of Conservation of Drama. I feel a song coming on.

siblings
My poor housemate brother. I've been an uncommunicative ogre for a week while I work. OK. Several weeks. Clients all pounded me at once. I had to chain self to desk and just work. We are used to each other and it is a comfortable household. We both keep odd hours. He's finishing his PhD at U of Chicago. I'm very proud of him. He's 26. So young! Sometimes he calls me "dude" which cracks me up. Dude, you stay up all night? He's 6'5", almost a full foot taller than I. I am the oldest and shortest and grumpiest of six siblings. I'm very fond of and feel responsible for all of them.

hollywood
Incredible Hulk. Bad. No one's ruthless enough to write the Hulk properly. The Hulk. What an undeveloped character. If they turned me loose on the Hulk I'd write them a proper Hulk story. There would be no survivors (on Earth) but it would be a smashing damn good story. Properly sanguinary.

The Happening. Dumb. I was rooting for the plants. Yeah! Get em! Telepathic chlorophyll! M Night better quit while he's wealthy and behind.

Sex and the City. The more I dwell on this movie the more I wish I could erase it from my mind where, unfortunately, it's indelible because I remember everything except necessary facts. This movie sets back womankind 50 years. What the hell were they thinking? Do women actually applaud this movie? If I were a woman and saw this movie I would be outraged. Hell. I am outraged as a man. As a human fucking being. I really want Cloverfield to come in and stomp them. Mr Big needs a cockpunch. Why is every rightthinking person, female or male, not rising up to destroy the perpetrators of this movie?

Yes. I'm breaking wantonly the law of conservation of drama.

You know that guy Miles in the movie Sideways? I'm so that guy.

The correlations are spooky. This amuses me quite a lot.

If you have not seen the movie, I recommend it. It's a buddy movie and, to that end, its appeal might drift toward guys. But it's funny as hell and affords a lot of insight into male thinking.

Very smart film. Very well crafted.

Jessica Alba gives birth to baby girl named Honor
What a goofy headline. It's like the baby were named Honor in advance and Jessica Alba just happened to give birth to her.

Alanis Morissette continues channeling her anger
Another strange headline. Does any thinking person care how or why Alanis Morissette manages her anger? Is it any of our business? Is it the vocation of Alanis Morissette to channel her anger?

I do not know that having a reputation for being extremely emotional is a good thing. Much less to have that news bruited about in the media. Overall it's a good idea to at least seem to be in control of oneself, right?

Wait, who is Alanis Morissette?

Is she gonna come kick my ass?

There's someone pounding on the door. Holy cabbage. It's Alanis Morissette. She's gonna kick my ass. Then she's gonna write a song about kicking my ass.

There was this little smartass punk / In Chicago / I went to his house / And kicked his ass / Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Why Men Have Breasts

Yep. I used to be a dame.

If you read it, you also get treated to anthropologist Meredith Small exulting over actor Harrison Ford. Can't miss out on that.

In DC in 1998 or thereabouts Harrison Ford came to town to shoot a film. The film crew was shooting near the downtown office where I worked (this was Academy for Educational Development when they had an office on 23rd St just north of Foggy Bottom). Rumors of Ford ran wild. All the girls in the office were dashing about and giggling. I am not making this up. I was making fun of them, and Kimberly hmmphed at me.

Jackie Brown. It's a good movie. I never saw it till now. It's OK. I'm not a Tarantino fan -- he's a little too focused on cool -- but it's a good movie. And the guy can write dialog. He writes black people as well as a white person possibly can.

CSS. It's weird. I mean, I'm making it work, but it's weird b/c it should not work. I'm sure it makes sense to browser developers and the W3C. I get my designs to work and other people's designs to work until they look correct and validate fully. But some elements are nonintuitive. And I have a pretty good intuition. I mean that intuition that you get when you know something should work or else it should fail. Like when you throw a ball at a basket and you know, right as the ball leaves your hands, whether or not the ball is going to go in the basket.

Ball should not be goin in tha basket but the ball be goin in tha basket. Worked hard today. 'Night now.

I liked the Tony Stark and Pepper Potts characters. I did not like the Hollywood reliance on explosions and bad guy monologuing. The final press conference scene was quite funny. "I am ..."

Wait, that's a spoiler.

3 stars out of 5.

Annoyed by fiasco in bed. emergency is available
This one vaulted past my spam filter today.

Hi!.
Annoyed by fiasco in bed? Cheer up now! Leave this dull experience behind! emergency is available! Awesome bedtime is just minutes away!

I want a t-shirt that reads Awesome bedtime is just minutes away! I would wear it on first dates. Or put the text on a banner to hang on my bedroom door. Every babe lair should have one.

I like the little touches like the extra period after the exclamation point and the line space after that. These modern ED remedy adverts are art. Intentionally so? Like the writer were trying to draw a chuckle?

It could easily be an advert for a somnifacient is one beauty.

Cloverfield
Lazy day, I'm waiting for a consultant to get back to me, so I am watching it again. The movie received a lot of criticism for its disjointed and amateur camerawork but I think it's well done. I would have been proud to have made this movie. It's funny and sweet and clever. It's not gratuitous. It's menacing in the right measure.

I'm usually one to cry foul at hollywood schlock. But this movie managed to take the lurching camerawork of the hamhanded character Hud and turn it into a good story.

Hud's inept courtship of Marlena is quite funny. Who of we has not initiated such a goonlike pursuit? OK, well, maybe only I. Hud is the linchpin of the film. He's a coward and a fool. I like him very much.

Schlock and country
Hollywood schlock — America's gift to the world.

World: Hey America thanks for the hollywood schlock. We can really use that.

America: I got more where that came from.

I love my country. That's why I'm critical of it. If I disdained it then I'd just disregard it or take it for granted (as many Americans do) or drive nowhere and endlessly in thick traffic blaring my horn and tailgating the wretch in front of me and cursing my little life.


Marlena whacks parasite with found implement. Go Marlena.

One small thing. Nicole Kidman is walking her young son to school. She comments that it is nice to walk to school in the morning. He says You wouldn't say that if it was raining.

If it were, she corrects.

Awareness of the subjunctive in Hollywood. In a Hollywood script. Made me smile.