Lost Hour - Maybe Not So Lost

I lost a good hour today after rehearsal swapping culture nuggets:

Desaturated Santa (explanations)

Just blown away by the effect.  I love the explanation:

Santa is an immediately recognizable figure, and a Classic Santa has a fixed set of signifiers. The red and white suit, the black belt, the black boots with fur on top, the hat with the pompom on the end. These things add up in our brains to a Platonic Ideal of Santa.

[...]

When I decided to make a Desaturated Santa costume, I realized that to remove the visual cue of Red but still be recognizable as a Santa, I had to maintain as many of the other signifiers as I could. The illusion of a walking black-and-white-photo of a Santa wouldn’t be as effective if I wasn’t wearing a very classic Santa outfit.

Santa Mob

Desaturated Santa, Year 2

I'm taking leave of Santas Follow @sfsanta & #sfsanta

Union Square Santas

black & white santa

#lessambitiousmovies (hash tag on Twitter)

Just completely lost it, laughing.  Take a famous movie, then lower the ambitions on the title.

Schindler's Grocery List
The Girl With The Temporary Dragon Tattoo
Coming To Canada
Thursday Night Fever
Casablanket
The Devil Wears Kirkland Signature
Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Arizona
Edward Fingerhands
Alice in Wallmart
Mission: Difficult
The Quarterback of Notre Dame
I.T. The Extra Employee
Being John Stamos
Jurassic Dog Park
Assistant Manager of the Rings
RoboMallCop

Best collections are:

Paste Magazine

The Huffington Post

Raul countered with Ted Williams - Homeless man with the golden voice

Bucket List

Ahh facebook...  a well for infinite time wasting! :-)

Place an "X" by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not, then send it to your friends (including me).

To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, do the list and tag people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish. If you don't see the Tag people in the upper right hand corner you are in the wrong place.


Things you have done during your lifetime:


(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
(X) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
(X) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Been in a helicopter
(X) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
( ) Recently colored with crayons
( ) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
(X) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
( ) Cast a spell
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
( ) Been horse back riding
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco cable car
(X) Been to Disneyland
( ) Been to Disney World
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
(X) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been para-sailing
(X) Been water-skiing
(X) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to Malaysia
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(x) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
( ) Been to a cricket test match

100 Books Meme

Lazy, lazy blogging. But here it is.

Bold the ones you’ve read,
italicize the ones you want to read,
cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole,
put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf,
and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind(Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. +Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. *Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
53. Ender's Game(Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
83. *Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. +Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. +The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Wow. Only one I want to read? Perhaps my readers could suggest their favorites for me to check out.

I Had To Know

30

Here are the ground rules:

• You are in an enclosed area roughly the size of a basketball court
• There are no weapons or foreign objects
• Everyone is wearing a cup (so no kicks to the groin)
• The children are merciless and will show no fear
• If a child is knocked unconscious, he is "out." The same goes for you.

Important answers on my survey:

I can kick higher than 3 feet (that might not be true).
I counted my years of judo training during 4th to 6th grade.
I've been in one fight in my life.
I counted my experience running from bees and playing Starcraft.
I've never been trampled.
I would bite, kick or eye-gouge in a fight.
To hell with morality, I'd be too busy pile-driving, crane-kicking, and bare-knuckle bashing them all the way back to kintergarten.
Yes, I would you feel morally comfortable picking up a child and using him/her as a weapon to throw at other children.

Dystopian Films

From John Remy's modified list of top dystopian films.

Bold: Seen
Italics: Top Picks

1. Brazil (1985)
2. Wings of Desire (1987)
3. Blade Runner (1982)
4. Children of Men (2006)
5. The Matrix (1999)
6. Minority Report (2002)
7. Delicatessen (1991)
8. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
9. Serenity (2005)
10. Pleasantville (1998)
11. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
12. Battle Royale (2000)
13. RoboCop (1987)
14. Akira (1988)
15. The City of Lost Children (1995)
16. V for Vendetta (2005)
17. Metropolis (2001)
18. Gattaca (1997)
19. Total Recall (1990)
20. Dark City (1998)
21. District 13 (2004)
22. They Live (1988)
23. Escape from New York (1981)
24. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
25. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
26. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
27. I Robot (2004)
28. Strange Days (1995)
29. Idiocracy (2006)
30. Death Race 2000 (1975)
31. Starship Troopers (1997)
32. One Point O (2004)
33. Equilibrium (2002)

Dark City is like watching The Matrix without all the cool fighting. Plus, you know a movie's in trouble when they take 5 minutes in the middle to do a plot summary (the row-boat scene). District 13 has cool parkour, but otherwise is a crappy movie. I Robot? A travesty that it was named or "inspired" by the book. Nothing like it.

I struggled to pair down my top picks. Next tier was Pleasantville and Equilibrium. Idiocracy is a hilarious commentary on modern day culture (it's got electrolytes). It's been too long since I've seen Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I do remember really liking it. And funny to see John Hurt in V For Vendetta as the chancellor, after playing the lead in Ninteen Eighty-Four.

YouTube Music Crush

Marie Digby has a record label which had the genius idea of having her cover pre-existing hits on YouTube without mentioning she was a signed artist. It's worked, and now she's an overnight success, two years later. I only have the benefit of seeing this in hindsight. But look at the makeup. And the lighting (clearly professionally lit). Anyone else doing iSight based video which looks that good? Still, she's doing catchy music, she's pretty, and her voice is pretty. Add gimmick and stir. How much time have I spent with theses songs playing in the background?!

Rihanna's "Umbrella":


Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right":


Linkin Park's "What I've Done":


Natalie Imbruglia's version of "Torn":


Joan Osborne's "One Of Us":

Favorite Movies

Well, inspired by Miko on Mind on Fire, as well as Journeygal, here are my favorite movies (bold movies are my favorites which no one has ever heard of):

American Beauty
American History X
Apocalypse Now
Big Lebowski, The
Blade Runner
Bob Roberts
Buena Vista Social Club
Capote
Casino
Chasing Amy
City of God
Control Room
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Croupier
Dazed and Confused
Donnie Darko
Eat Drink, Man Woman
Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fight Club
Fog of War
Fresh
Garden State
Gladiator
Good Will Hunting
Hero
Hoop Dreams
Keeping the Faith
Kill Bill
L.A. Confidential
L.A. Story
Lost in Translation
Magnolia
Mallrats
Matrix, The
Memento
Miller's Crossing
Notting Hill
Office Space
Open Your Eyes
Requiem for a Dream
Reservoir Dogs
Royal Tenenbaums, The
Run Lola Run
Rushmore
Seven Samurai
Shaun of the Dead
Sideways
Silence of the Lambs
Tao of Steve, The
Taxi Driver
There's Something About Mary
Trainspotting
Way of the Gun, The



Recent Movies I enjoyed but haven't assessed the staying power of:
An Inconvenient Truth (very thought-provoking)
Borat (can't get that taste out of my mustache)
Children of Men (I suspect it will stay on the faves list)
Casino Royale (one of of the best if not -the- best Bond film I've seen)
The Departed (another probable fave)
Inside Man
Thank You For Smoking (another probable fave)
V for Vendetta (another probable fave)

Recent Movies I Haven't Seen But Urgently Want To:
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen