Stewey and the Brian

They’re Stewey and the Brian,

Stewey and the Brian,

One is a genius, the other’s insane.

To prove their mousey worth,

They’ll overthrow the Earth,

They’re Stewey,

They’re Stewey and the Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian.

A new idea for a kids show, spin-off of Family Guy with less Meg bashing. I never got that, but maybe I’m the Meg.

I’ll probably be posting movie reviews again in about 2 weeks.  We’ll be back from vacation and I’ll be out of a job.  Hopefully that means digging in and getting my SQL certification while studying how to design games, but probably it means I’ll be leveling up Dancer in FFXI and browsing 4chan.

On memes

I haven’t had a whole lot of time for movies since I started working.  However, I do get a great deal of time to browse the internet.  I’ve started tracking some memes, watching how they develop, and then try to trace the origin.  When I was a kid I used to do this a lot before I went to sleep.  I’d think of something, my mind would wander, I’d go crazy places in my head, and then I’d trace back through my thought pattern to find the original idea that bred the fantasy.

One of the ones that took me a while to track down was “Where’s your God now?” or the slight variation “Where is your God now”.  This of course gets transferred into “Where is your *current meme* now?”  It’s used as a caption to a picture of something horrible happening, or with a replacement god (ie. Ceiling Cat).

Well, it turns out, it’s from “The Ten Commandments” (1956).  But the original quote was not god.  It was “Where’s your messiah now, Moses?”  Naturally the Moses was dropped in current memes, but I am curious as to how or why the collective  changed “messiah” to “god”.  Perhaps it’s just easier to spell.

The second one I cared to research today was “I wish, I wish, I was a fish.”  This one seemed difficult until I found that the original was “I wish I wish I were a fish.”  That immediately takes you to movie quotes for “The Incredible Mr. Limpet” (1964)  This one does not seem to transform or get used as a caption, but is quoted quite a bit.  Why?  My best guess is because “fish” is one of those words that sinks in your brain, and it rhymes.  One of my other amusments is reading the book “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”, for much the same reasons, and it’s just an amusing book.

Ingmar Bergman died today

I feel rather ignorant having seen only 3 of his films.  But I do understand that his passing is a sad day for film lovers and film makers.  He was an influential director, and I think I will make an effort to see more of his films.  I do remember finding The Seventh Seal to be remarkable in its cinematography and pacing, even if I found the idea of a humanized “death” to be a bit silly.  Thanks to that film I was more readily accepting of the humanized death in “Meet Joe Black”, which was a flawed yet touching film.

German Deli comes through

I decided to give germandeli.com another shot.  Previously when I tried to order Haribo Tropifrutti from them, they were out of stock.  But this time I went to order 20 and had no trouble placing my order.  The total plus shipping was around $75, but since I had been without my Tropifrutti for long, it was worth it.

After placing my order they sent me like 3 confirmation letters.  They also sent me the tracking number after they shipped my order, which was only about 2 hours later.

Today I had a package on my doorstep, and I was so excited!  I opened it up to find some huge styrofoam cooler type thing.  Inside that was 20 packages of Haribo Tropifrutti and 8 ice packs, which had already melted in the North Carolina heat.  It didn’t matter though, since they still tasted fresh and delicious.  Not only was the order well-packed, but it only took about 3 days since I placed it to get it.

German Deli has made this a very happy day for me.  I already ate an entire package, but I will try to space out the rest of them so they’ll last me a long time.  Mmmm, lecker!

Dreams

I remember a time when I didn’t want to go to sleep because my dreams were so bad.  But now I rarely have bad dreams, and when I do dream they’re usually like some kind of crazy movie land.  Everything I do is imperative to the way the world works.  In fact, the whole world just revolves around me.  Everything I do is incredibly interesting and exciting.  But then I wake up and feel bad that I can’t make real life as interesting and important.  I used to have a sign taped to my door when I lived in Germany that said “There is always something new”.  That would inspire me every time I went out, to explore a new shop, a new restaurant, a new park or even a new graveyard.  I’m sure even Durham could be as interesting if I at least tried.

Angelina Ballerina goes up as most hated cartoon after Caillou

I think Caillou will remain number one for a long time, but the most recent episode of Angelina Ballerina I saw was awfully close.

It starts out as a bunch of mice children are climbing an old oak tree. One mouse falls off the tree and starts complaining that she broke her arm. Angelina thinks the mouse is lying to get attention. Broken arm mouse’s parents then say the tree needs to be cut down. Angelina organizes a petition to save the tree, but none of the mouse adults will sign it because they agree a big tree is too dangerous to have around. One old grumpy mouse decides to help Angelina by chaining herself to the tree. Tree-fellers come to fell the tree, but can’t because Angelina and her friends are all over it. Then the tree just randomly starts shaking, Angelina “saves” old grumpy mouse by getting the key out of her pocket and unchaining her, and they all run away to safety just as the old oak tree splits in two and falls down by itself. The tree is then cut up into little logs which are built into a playground for all the mice.

Several things are wrong here. I’d hate for my child to be afraid of old trees because of this, and have the mistaken idea that any tree he helps to bring down will automatically become a wonderful playground for him. I know it’s just a children’s cartoon, but Teletubbies never try to teach my son to cut down trees.

I love the thunderstorms here

Besides actually being able to own a house, I think the best thing about living in Durham is the wonderful thunderstorms.  Yesterday a really spectacular one started just as we were leaving the grocery store.  As we got home it really started raining, so I let Niko stomp around in the driveway until he started getting wet.  Then we went out to the porch and watched it from there.  I’m really proud of the way he loves them just as much as I do, and barely flinched as the really big ones went off.  We were right in the center of the storm, and so the thunder came just slightly after the lighting went.  I was really hoping to see some trees explode in a shower of sparks but no such luck.  I wonder where all the lightning hits if it doesn’t hit the trees around our house.  I also got to wondering why the lighting is so short but the thunder lasts so much longer.  I kinda guessed it’s because the lightning starts higher up in the sky so it has different distances of sound waves to travel, but still the whole streak of lightning should only be like a mile long right?  So that’s only 5 more seconds of sound?  I swear sometimes it rumbles a lot longer than that.  But I don’t want to mess with the math of it all.

I think I’m getting dumber over time.  This could be because I’m getting older, crazier, or I have brain damage due to various periods of my life where I had very low blood sugar, or alcohol poisoning.  In any case, it worries me that I missed my only chance to solve great quantum theory problems, and that now that I’m old and dumb I’ll never accomplish anything regarding solving the problems of the universe.  I suppose I could still be a great artist though, since art does not require intelligence, sanity or youth.   I need to actually finish my paintings though, and start that old lady collage with the cool desert photo.

I hate your lasagna

Apparently this is the new doublespeak for “Let’s go out to dinner tomorrow.”  In honor of this being brought into my household, I have officially changed my title from “Housewife” to “Trophy Wife”.  I don’t think it gives any more distinction or meaning to the role, however it may exempt me from cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and other housework.

“Strictly Ballroom” has played a lot on the movie channels lately.  I think Paul Mercurio is the reason behind my Australian accent fetish.

I swear too much

I realized this when Niko played the So-and-so Says game. “Mommy says, Oh Fuck!”. I still can’t figure out why he thinks “Zack says, Woof woof!”

Basement office is painted. I’m gonna try to finish the rest by the end of the weekend but it’s a lot to paint. I’m happy with the way the gold looks under iridescent light, but in the main office it looks horrible under the fluorescent. I really don’t want to have to replace the fixture though since I already electrocuted myself pretty bad last night. Me and electricity don’t mix.

Eric says we have a crayola house. I wonder if this will effect the resale value.

Edelweiss Imports has really crappy customer service.

This happened months ago but the thought of it still pisses me off.  It’s been like 7 years since I’ve had Haribo Tropifrutti, and they don’t sell it in the US or Canada for some reason.  I’ve had relatives living there, and visit there in the last 7 years, and I ask them to bring some back… they never do.  So I go online trying to order some and either there’s none in stock or it’s just not carried.

Finally I find a website that has some in stock.  So I order $75 worth of Haribo Tropifrutti from this site called edelweissimports.com and they send me a reciept that reflects my Tropifrutti order.  However, when I recieve the box, it’s filled with crappy old gummi bears.  The kind you can get anywhere in the US.  I’m monumentally pissed so I call them and they say “Oh, we were out of Tropifrutti but we sent you gummi bears, they’re just as good.”  Fuck no they aren’t.  If you don’t have my order in stock you don’t fucking send me whatever you have lying around, you send me my money back or you wait until what I ordered is in stock.

So they say “Just mark it ‘Return to Sender’ and we’ll give you a refund.  So that’s what I do.  But because I opened it, the post office wouldn’t take it back.  So I pay $17.95 in shipping costs to send their wrong order back.  I contact the BBB and let them know about this mess and all the sudden Edelweiss is so apologetic like “ooooh, we TRIED to please that lady but gummi bears aren’t good enough for her!”.  They eventually did refund my $75 for the messed up order but I never got back the cost of shipping.

And I still don’t have any Haribo Tropifrutti.