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3/17/03 KISS ME, I'M CONVENIENTLY CLOSE-BY

I love that Onion St. Patty's Day slogan.

OK, so this Oliver Beene show? Isn't the kid freakishly goofy-lookin'? I mean, Malcolm was goofy-lookin', but in a cute way. This kid's just...goofy-lookin'. To the point where I almost can't watch the show. But then my friend told me that that same little kid is none other than Ari Tenenbaum. Oh dear. Pre-puberty hit him hard. Well, I never thought that I wouldn't enjoy something that was even remotely linked to a Wes Anderson flick but...here we are.

The thing is...the show gets props..."hella mad props" for doing that Stand By Me spoof in the second episode. "None of us had ever seen a dead body before...it made all our petty squabbling..." and then the "dead body" wakes up screaming! OK...that was admirable. But then again, you'd have to have seen Stand By Me a total of 16 times to have gotten the reference. How do I know you need to see the movie that exact number of times? Um...heh heh...guilty, as charged.

I enjoyed more the Malcolm in the Middle take of Raiders of the Lost Ark that happened later that night. First of all, the boulder is reinterpreted as a beach ball. A beach ball! And second--it's Hal tottering away with his scared face! I was on the floor. Oh comedy, thy name is Malcolm. If I get another cat, I'm naming him Dewey.

And can I tell you how evil the Girl Scouts are? I mean, besides my own personal experiences? Those friggin' cookies are $3 a box now! And if that weren't enough, they SHRANK their Tagalongs!!! I swear, they used to be thicker. As many an im junkie exclaimeth, WTF? Word to the wise tho--if you're partial to those peanut butter sandwiches, like I was, the substitute lies within two glorioius words: Nutter Butter.

3/9/03 MALKOVICH MALKOVICH, MALCOVICH?

Sorry for the heading there, in weird mood. But you know that scene where John Malkovich goes into his own portal, and that's all anyone says? It holds for some deep conversation if you're only limited to one word, and that one word is a proper noun that holds no real meaning. It's kind of like Henrietta Pussycat, and her "meow meow meow meow way of speech meow meow." I think that just goes to show you that only a few words are really essential in conversation, and the superfluous ones can be "meow-ed" out.

I miss Mr. Rogers.

So anyway, a couple of things to share witchu. Um, first, I'm updating my Linkables link to include the sites that I frequent to date, and discarding the ones I just don't go to anymore. We move on. Such is life.

And the other thing: SpongeBob SquarePants-shaped Macaroni and Cheese. Thanks to the teaming up of Nickelodeon and Kraft, I think they have achieved the perfect shape for macaroni. I really don't know why, but the SpongeBob pasta just tastes better than the regular elbow-shaped pasta. I mean, it's definitely less aerodynamic, but they've maximized the taste.

Oh and another thing: if you're wondering if they registered Homer's email address, "chunkylover53@aol.com" from episode 1408, "The Dad Who Knew Too Little," they did. I was curious myself because I knew in the past they registered whatbadgerseat.com, and because Homer kept on repeating it, as if daring people to email it. Yep. Sorry for lapsing into the Comic Book Guy there for a second, but it was on my mind.

One more thing: There's a new Very Secret Diaries entry out--Legolas Part II. It is, as always, hilarious. I got my "Sam will KILL YOU if you try anything" t-shirt, and along with it, received some very nonplussed looks from passers-by. Maybe it's the fact that "KILL YOU" is emblazoned quite largely. Hmm. Should really re-think my wardrobe choices in the future.

3/1/03 STILL THE PRETTIEST
I'm a little slow. Which is why it was only last weekend that I discovered the Very Secret Diaries. About five diaries thru, I thought they were absolutely brilliant. Treating The Fellowship as a bunch of sexually frustrated gay men? I mean, who never saw the innuendo...especially in the Two Towers. See, Sam tackles Frodo right before Frodo is about to stick his finger in the ring. The power of friendship saving one who is about to succomb to the forces of evil? No. See...the ring is very vaginal. And when Frodo is about to stick...his finger...in it, well, Sam does feel he has to save him from going to "the other side." You see? Don't you see? Mr. Frodo, it's your Sam.

O.K., so maybe that's so blatantly obvious that it in fact implodes into itself such that there is no innuedno at all. Frannie physics of non-existence. If it's too blatantly obvious, there's no point in it existing at all.

But back to the Very Secret Diaries. Yes, five diaries through, absolute genius, but after about five, the whole sex thing really waring thin on the patience. But still, through it all there are some absolutely hilarious insights that make up for it all. Like, "Indistinguishable back-up hobbit?" I mean, the "Sam will kill him if he tries anything" got a little exasperating, but who can top, "Still not king." or "Still the prettiest."? Heh heh heh. And my work is done. Actually, my work is tragically stolen from me before I can even perform it. Curse Cassandra Claire for being more funny.

In other news, there are three Jettas in the parking garage downstairs. What the heck is up with all the Jettas? And they all enjoy parking in my space. Friggin' kids.

2/23/03 FRANNIE SEZ:
If you have to pay to see your winning poem, it's not a poetry contest.

And I have officially finished The Lord of the Rings. Appendices, prologue, everything. And I must say, I'm glad I didn't read the prologue before reading the books, because it gives a lot away.
I didn't want to end, but now I feel so complete. I'm an official Tolkien geek. Yaay. Now will I be one of those who reads it over again annually? Probably not. But you never know...I just might be that weird and depressing.

2/15/03 OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

Now that I'm winding down my journey thru Middle Earth (no...really, that's not an euphamism) I have to say that for the past year and a half or so, The Lord of the Rings has been a really big part of my life. And I think it's the fact that I've been immersed in two different entities--the books and the movies. I really believe that I wouldn't have enjoyed LOTR if it had just existed in either form. Both the books and the movie make the experience what it is for me. Because what the movie doesn't have, the book has, and vice versa. You could take the perspective that the book gives the "truer" sense of the story, which makes me very happy that I concurrently read them. But I think of it more as two separate entities, and though it's a give and take in terms of their identicalness, they're both very excellent. It's like what Stephen King said about Stand by Me. Movies and books are like apples and oranges--while both are very delicious, they're different. They must be. I just find it very lucky that neither book or movie LOTR really sucked.

Case in point, the movie sorta ruined Faramir. To the point where the guy in the movie is just not worthy enough for Eowyn. But it works in the book for me. Then again, for the most part the movies have this impeccable sense of putting faces to the characters you read about. You know how amazing the realization of Gollum is? And who would have ever thought, just by reading the books, to take Legolas-- the elf who sporadically turns up, shoots arrows, and says stupid things--and make him hot? I mean, good job casting crew! Do you know how much this means to girl geeks out there? We can never thank you enough. You truly made Legolas Legolicious.

Now speaking from a geek girl point of view, aren't the movies just a big and wonderful meat fest? I mean, this is one facet of the movie that guy geeks will never quite get to experience. Sure, the books that they have been pouring over for ages are finally realized on the big screen in swift movements of artistry. But we geek girls get that, and the fact that almost every guy hero in the movie is so damn hot. The combined forces of Liv Tyler and Miranda Otto are nothing compared to what we get. Orli Bloom...Viggo...man even the hobbits. What can I say? I've always been into short guys.

2/9/03

So there's this website where you can make your own authentic-looking jpeg files of those valentine candy hearts: www.acme.com/heartmaker. It's rilly rilly cute (phrase coined by a friend of mine who uses it to describe her cat Pooper, in high-pitched tones). But if you go to the link that shows the most recently made hearts, you may be disappointed by the lack of wit plastered on them. Names, ("DAWN," "JIM") and declarations of love, ("DAWN NJIM") are what most of the hearts are comprised of, and only rarely are there the works of a genius ("BEMY HO"). Come on people! Don't you see the delicious irony of putting a phrase on a candy heart that would be vastly inappropriate on a candy heart?! True, it's really hard to limit oneself to eight characters...but really. Try. This is why I am still single when everyone I know is getting married: not enough guys who can think up of witty things to put on jpeg files of candy hearts. Alas.

BUT WHAT ABOUT GIRLS, YOUNG MAN?
Oh gees. There's this MST3K short called, "Why Study Industrial Arts." It's frickin' ingenious. Utterly utterly inspired. I am still laughing about it and probably will be for some time...on the shuttle tomorrow morning perhaps, amidst several bemused people, wondering why I am laughing to myself. "But what of girls, young man?" Come on, that is such an obscure reference...nobody would ever know what the heck I am talking about lest they were MST3K fans themselves. It's like that one time I exclaimed "I'm cooomiiing" while playing Warcraft III and my friend laughed, and I was so surprised that he did. Albeit he was the one who showed me that one MST3K episode, "Quest of the Delta Knights," but by then I was so used to uttering that phrase and getting only blank stares and confused silence in return.
I guess the trick is to immerse yourself in things that are relatively mainstream, otherwise you could get totally obsessed in say, a computer game that nobody has ever heard of...and it just seems nuts to be that committed to something no one knows about. But isn't it part of geekdom to be immersed in relatively obscure things? That way, the choice of those whom you associate with becomes quite selective. Maybe in my acute anti-socialness, it's not so good to be selective. Thus, I continue to watch American Idol and Surreal Life.
1/12/03

I've got a job that's sure to stress me out for the spring: working at a research lab down at the med school. Let's just say that my level of commitment and dedication is low, my lab technique sucks, and I'm not very quick on the uptake. Why am I doing this? Why can't I work at a gift shop and wear long flowy dresses everyday?

At least my nights and weekends are my own. No more homework!! Woo! I've decided to take up yoga, thinking it's low impact and will help me deal with stress. I started today. You know what? Yoga is INSANE. I never realized that I never knew how to breathe before. And those poses look so easy but when you're actually in them, they're incredibly incredibly difficult. I fell twice. But I feel good.