🏳️🌈🇺🇸🏳️⚧️ Garrulous, pedantic, peripatetic. Technical Writer, former radio DJ. Working from home in Berkshire County. Also available on Compact Disc.
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I don't understand why, on a Monday morning, the Boston Globe mobile app homepage features four "columns" on the previous day's Patriots game right near the top, but not what I would call the headline story with the actual coverage of the game, you know, with the score and everything.
I would love a bluesky engineering manager to explain to me why the max character limit for posts is 300 and the max for alt text is 2,000.
After I figured out Chota the lead Thugee is played by Abner Biberman, who I remember as Louie the pickpocket from Cary Grant's HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940), that made watching him play a Indian Kali worshiper, slathered in brown makeup, even more uncomfortable
The whole remainder of the movie is TEMPLE OF DOOM-level racist, if the Thugee were played by white guys in brownface. The tributes and parallels to this movie in Spielberg's second Indiana Jones movie are everywhere...
Watched GUNGA DIN (1939) tonight, hailed by an entire generation of directors as a great action movie. There's some cracking good action, especially the rooftop battle at the beginning, and some funny bits in the middle. The whole bit with the spiked punch, Victor McLagen is hilarious...BUT...
My wife shared this "cake wreck" with me the other day, is there a connection?
Reminds me of Richard Feynman explaining his Nobel Prize in Physics: "If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize"
I Miss the confident feeling we would get when the other team would give Brady back the ball with, like, 6 minutes left in the game, knowing full well that was more than enough time for Brady to score another touchdown. How could they be so dumb to leave him so much time to score again?
It's wild watching Seinfeld on Netflix on a 44" TV. Never mind it looks weird cropped the top and bottom, but it's super grainy, and sometimes the focus is just wonky. You can't tell by looking at this photo, but neither Jerry nor his mother are really in focus for about two seconds "The Wallet"
Season 2, Episode 1, it takes Elaine 90 seconds to make the ascent. "You have the slowest elevator in the entire city" she declares. OTOH, some of these times are so short (11 seconds?) they're staged for dramatic convenience and don't reflect reality, regardless of what floor Jerry lives on!
INFOGRAPHIC: SEINFELD, from Buzzer To Door. When I watch Seinfeld, and Jerry buzzes someone into his building, I time how long it takes for George, Elaine, or whoever, to arrive at his apartment door. Here's my data so far. So far only once did a character comment on how long it took...
Agreed, the press I've read has ranged from suspicious to hostile.
Uhhhh didn't Venus originally *have* arms?
I didn't even get that far - they're conflating political conservatism with culturally conservative - "big game-going, New York ritzing, beer-chugging, cheerleading" has nothing to do with being a progressive. There's plenty of Americans who like culture that codes "liberal" that vote Republican
...and Tom's girlfriend Lucy is Green Fury!
PULP FICTION for me (saw it 6 times!) I get why people love it - and lots of people do - but I found Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood bloated and unending. If I had not been on a date with my wife, I would have left somewhere in the soggy middle. My 2019 review: stubhubby.blogspot.com/2019/08/once...
I saw POINT BLANK 20 years ago as part of a LA Noir film series at the Brattle Theatre. At the time I called it "an extremely low-key revenge thriller, filtered through the then-trendy French psychedelic surrealism of the Summer of Love" stubhubby.blogspot.com/2005/03/la-n...
To quote Steve Martin in LA STORY: "I don't think you understand how unattractive hate is."
Yes to the "People Get Ready" video, and I think we played a record called Jeff's Garage at my high school radio station?
I grew up listening to Classic Rock radio in Boston from 1986 through 1992, and I don't have any memory of any Jeff Beck / Yardbirds records on the radio. Whereas Rolling Stone talked about him like he was a legend on par with Eric Clapton... but I didn't know any of his songs?
Part 2 was a hard watch. The emotional & narrative responsibility for explaining the failure of his marriages is foisted on his exes. Defiant Billy never owns up to his alcoholism and shortcomings as a husband and father. His defiance over his multiple motor vehicle accidents was pathetic!
Great stuff. Many rockers' marriages suffer because of touring. The doc makes the case that the success of his 4th marriage (so far) is not thanks to any growth or change on Billy's part, but rests on the fact that his 10-year, 104 show MSG residency meant he didn't have to travel for work anymore.
My main issue with English right now is that "I'm down for that" and "I'm up for that" mean the same thing. I hate it. We've gone too far as a culture. "Bad" meaning "good" forty years ago was only the beginning. Why even have words anyglurkfladdgh
I bought an anthology collection of his once, and this demo became one of my favorite songs of the last 25 years. A perfect little gem, I love singing it, and the harmonies are just terrific.
You know how in BLACK PANTHER, T'Challa is the rightful king of Wakanda, but Killmonger, while being a villain, also kinda has a point? It's kind of like that.
The first time I saw this was in the GIGANTIC documentary circa 2002? I sat there in glee and agape. What glorious fun for their iconic song to be supercharged with Doc Severinsen and his orchestra!
To save $250 this year, I switched most of our streaming services to the cheaper tiers, with ads. The net effect has been me watching way more of our DVD collection
Copilot For Excel: Making Math Silly
I think you are on to something here. It's too bad too, because I feel the Rey/Kylo dynamic was excellent, their struggles with The Force felt real. Ripley especially embodied "she seems good but maybe she'll turn to the Dark Side" way more convincingly than Mark Hamill did
Today's NYT #crossword rant: 45 across is not a thing. I dare Gia Bosko to use it in a sentence with a straight face. Also, please explain 16 down. I don't get it.
It's pathetic to see someone incapable of imagining other people's lives having value, unless they're forced to by witnessing their own child's suffering.
I might have seen this movie in the theater. This exchange always cracked me up: Giancarlo Giannini: Who said anything about *murder*? Richard Lewis: Stephen King?
Excellent read. Thanks!
When I bought a secondhand XBOX from a guy who just upgraded to the XBOX 360, it wasn't a boring black model, it was this HALO special edition console...
I'm rewatching the 2013 Tom Cruise movie OBLIVION. It's not great, but it's very stylish with A+ landscapes. I just realized the plot is basically ROBOCOP with a love triangle.
I'm not looking for MS RIGHT... I'm looking for MS NOW
Good conversation with plenty of good points, although this paragraph is so opaque and riddled with side jokes, only the author knows what he's talking about. What do reviews of Shrek and Birdman have to do with focaccia bread exactly?
I've been following this dispute between rich, entitled landowners and the right to access a centuries-old public path for years, and I'm thrilled ther SJC unanimously told them to stick it. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/15/m...
Are you kidding? All you can do on here is write for yourself, and if other people like to read it, bonus.
Nobody ever said "I wish you hadn't gotten me this meatball sub without asking first"
Assault with a deli weapon
The police are held up as heroes by many, but it's hard to gin up any glory for them when they slap felony charges because a sandwich bounced off their bulletproof vest. The prosecution should have to reveal some bumps and bruises - some shredded lettuce and a mayo stain isn't going to cut it.
The MCU hates calling comic book heroes by their comic book names in the movies - Hawkeye, Black Widow - But this may be the first time none of the heroes EVER get called by their comic book names in the movie?
The CGI is mostly fine - The Thing looks great, even though his rock sound effects are inconsistent - but there are several moments where it looks like the baby has been enhanced with computer effects? What's so complicated about a baby? It's so distracting!
...and Paul Walter Hauser is hilarious stealing his two scenes playing - let's admit it - The Underminer from the Incredibles. (Marvel did it in the comics first, but Pixar put him in a movie first!)
It's revealing that the four of them are so insulated from the outside world, that the rare scenes that have any kind of pulse are when they are talking to someone else. Natasha Lyonne is a breath of fresh air as a neighborhood school teacher...
The new Fantastic Four movie is DEEPLY MEH. The FF have always been boring, are they trying to make their relationship airless and chilly? The action scenes are all borrowed from better movies, and the plot is janky and predictable. Bottom-tier MCU...
Yeah I saw a 60-year-old man on an electric scooter going 25 mph in the breakdown lane of a state highway and I don't think that baseball cap is going to protect what's left of his brain?
I'd recognize this painter anywhere... because I spent three days doing a jigsaw puzzle of one of his landscapes last Christmas vacation.
My wife and I often quote the similar scene from MR MOM, where they discuss their escape plan on their way up the driveway: "going to pull an 'Aunt Emily'."
I was 11 when that came on. It felt like Event Television, like the MASH finale or the Olympics! Very curious if it's any good 42 years later?
One time on vacation my future wife and I watched Master and Commander, and then went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I discovered her watching Master and Commander again. The duet Aubrey & Maturin play at the end of the movie? We had our string quartet play that song as we left our wedding 😍
I can't listen to journalists? Who are unskilled public speakers? Every phrase sounds like a proposal? That they're asking for my buy-in of the facts they're reporting? Is this generational bias, is this more common with young women, I don't know. I take public speaking seriously, it rankles me.
Uptalking? The NYT and the Athletic's talking head videos embedded in articles are a way to engage more eyeballs on their content. If you prefer to digest the story via video, go for it. However...
Godspeed Matt! I have been on this journey with my boys too. Long after most shows have peaked, the best episode ever is in Season 8 (!!!), along with, like, seven more all-time greats. The hits just keep on comin'...
OMG my wife has been saying this for years!
While PD James uses specific 50c words to describe architecture and plant life - whether the characters know what they're called or not - Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey is very well-educated, and makes allusions to novels, poems, Shakespeare, and Gilbert & Sullivan in his dialog throughout. Fascinating!
...Sheraton bureau Frangipani Bibilot table Hogarthian Marsh test "hollow, hollow, hollow all delight" Uncle Tom Cobley Diogenes and his Lantern "He who wills the end, wills the means" The Siege of Acre James Maybrick "Mithridates, he died old." King Cophetua /FIN
Just like a human brain, the whole USA map is badly remembered, and it gets it especially wrong when it comes to the little fiddly bits in New England, or "NEV'ULOND"
...Nell Gwyn Bible verse Rachel and her father Laban Dr Spooner Aubusson carpet epicene "like one o'clock" Weltschmerz Max Beerbohm BB pencil Inverness cape Robert Adam ceiling Poppaea Sabina Buhl table...
...Frederic Farrar Duc de praslin "Hilary term" acushla Jack Point The Yeoman Of The Guard succès d'estime plenteous "forrarder" Anthracite stove Fair Isle sweater Athulf arsenic Morris chair Jenny Wren Our Mutual Friend Martell drink How much is £70,000 in 1930 worth in 2025 ipsissima verba...
Words Googled while reading STRONG POISON [1930], by Dorothy L Sayers [so far]: Henri Landru David and Bathsheba "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny" Madeline Smith trial Seddon trial Herbert Armstrong Edgar Wallace Deal table incunabula Kai Lung George Robey...
Director Barry Sonnenfeld is apparently famous for keeping his movies short at all costs. I love any movie under 100 minutes and Men In Black is a delightful 98.
NOTE: my 10 year-old son is sick this weekend so we're watching a bunch of animated movies together.
While we're at it, THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART is a terrific case study of how two alien cultures can completely misunderstand each other due to assumptions and perpendicular communication styles...
Not only is LILO & STITCH one of my favorite Disney movies, it's a surprisingly good sci-fi movie too. The alien designs are lighthearted, and the tone overall is refreshing compared to most sci-fi...
The truck bed on the left is maybe 12 inches longer than the bed on the right, for example...
I read that interview with Stephen King many years ago, and they're right, directors never cross the axis, and when they do, it sticks out like a sore thumb!
"Andyyyyyyy!"
My Extremely Pedantic Niche Pet Peeve OTD: calling a dystopian book/movie that takes place in a world different but not more advanced than ours "science fiction". If it doesn't take place in the future and/or include advanced technology, it's not sci-fi.
Is 25 Across a dad joke? I dunno. 49 Across is even more mysterious, unless I just don't know enough about fishing? They make late-week puzzles harder by making the clues less helpful. 17 Across and 58 Across require a mental leap far beyond what a Thursday puzzle should require.
Sometimes the themed clues in the late-week NYT crossword are so abstruse, they can't be solved without help from the vertical words. Today, two of them I literally don't get, and the other two are far beyond the line of reasonably solvable. My whole puzzle was DOOMED www.nytimes.com/crosswords/g...
It's been awhile since I had a split diopter alert. The War Of The Roses (1989)!
A plausible thinkpiece parody could be written that argues holding the elevator door "a little too long" is socialist
I reviewed this for my blog 10 years ago. The comedy is fun, but the romance with Penelope Ann Miller is not. Watching Arnold woodenly flounder in a simple love scene is mortifying... stubhubby.blogspot.com/1990/12/kind...
I'm reading STRONG POISON: Lord Peter Wimsey is smitten with mystery novelist Harriet Vane, whom he's never met, on trial for murdering her egomaniacal ex-boyfriend. He takes up the case half because he loves solving mysteries, but mostly because he wants to marry her. He's charming and adorable.
The doc makes the case that the success of his fourth marriage (so far) is not thanks to any growth or change on Billy's part, but rests on the fact that his 10-year, 104 show Madison Square Garden residency meant he didn't have to travel for work anymore.
Funny how Christie Brinkley honestly and emotionally tells the tale while repeatedly breaking down in tears on camera, while Billy reverts to the passive voice and never owns up to his alcoholism and shortcomings as a husband and father...
The Billy Joel AND SO IT GOES documentary Part 2 is a hard watch. The emotional and narrative responsibility for explaining the failure of his second and third marriages is foisted on his ex-wives....
Doesn't she recommend to Arnold, while she's facedown in bed, "take the gun" 😀
A perfect album that came out when you were 16?
If you could hack the New York Times homepage and write your own banner headline that would stay up for five minutes, what would you pick? I would probably quote Liz Lemon from that 30 Rock DONALD TRUMP EATEN BY LION
No cheating, post your lock screen. (When my son saw this photo he insisted I use it as my new lock screen)
Listening to "Sexy Ways" right now. I totally hear it 🐦🐦
☑️The Human Duplicators ☑️Teenagers From Outer Space ☑️San Francisco International ☑️Hercules Unchained (my wife and I say "I forgot how to breathe" regularly!)
I never laughed as hard as I did at LAST CLEAR CHANCE. "I'd tuck you in, but you're dead"
My sister once moved from Boston to Bloomington, Indiana, both of which are in the Eastern time zone, despite being ~1,000 miles apart. The sun sets tonight in Boston nearly an hour before Bloomington!
What's the difference between getting 88 good reviews + 12 bad reviews, and 88 rave reviews and + bad reviews? In the Rotten Tomatoes universe, NOTHING.
THIS is the peril of the binary Rotten Tomatoes system. "a refreshingly new direction for Marvel" "only allowed to be fine" "often feels less like a superhero story" "staid" "a quantum leap of ship-righting" "the characters are thinly sketched" "good is good enough" ...
The Top Critics pull quotes for FANTASTIC FOUR read like they're trying hard to find something good to say about the movie. Faint praise still counts as "fresh" according to Rotten Tomatoes... www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fantas...
When was the last time you heard about a famous person dying NOT on social media?
It's easy when the movies are all-time classics, but also, THE GODFATHER and JAWS are both mediocre paperbacks.
So the seal has to go hungry why exactly? It's supposed to be the circle of life, gang, not a beauty contest.
Agreed - both in those books and in the actual reviews in the magazine, I often wondered why some bad reviews were so vindictive? Wouldn't it be easier just to ignore terrible records?
Last night's double feature: The Lost World: Jurassic Park with one son, and The Naked Gun with the other. Jurassic 2 is still atrocious by Spielberg standards. Naked Gun is still great, I skipped the "Drebin Beats Up Evil World Leaders" bit at the opening. stubhubby.blogspot.com/1997/05/lost...
Love it. Here's a 969x969 pixel square of "Wheat Field With Cypresses" - If I understand BlueSky properly, this attachment should be uncompressed by the app.
