AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

[10 Tuesday] Always a comedian

This is my dog, Victor. This is my dog, Victor, on glasses. Any questions?

My apologies for blurry cell phone pic, but sometimes you just need to take the pictures as they come to you. Doesn't Victor look smart in glasses?

This week's 10 for Tuesday is favorite comedies. Well, this is probably my favorite genre, barring musicals, and my tastes are, hrm, broad to say the least. What I consider a comedy is probably not a comedy to a lot of other people.

10 Comedies that others would consider Comedies

1. Addams Family Values. My favorite of the Addams Family movies.
2. First Wives Club. It's so snarky. My favorite is the daughter.
3. The Incredibles. It's adventure and comedy!
4. Never Been Kissed. Yeah, also romcom.
5. Kick-Ass. We watched this from Netflix and it was a lot of fun!
6. Despicable Me. It was cute, and I'd watch it again.
7. Tangled. Yes. I like animation. And?
8. The Princess Bride. This led to years of funny Christmases.
9. Clueless. It is completely brainless, and sometimes that's a good thing.
10. A tie between Shaun of the Dead and the Buffy movie.

Obviously there is a lot that could have gone on those lists. Pretty much all of the Monty Python movies with a special nod to Life of Brian and Holy Grail, a few more comedic animated films, Wayne's World, etc.

Then there is my special list. Like my list of holiday movies, these are comedies mostly to me and the overlap between the two lists is pretty high. Some of them are actually meant to be comedies, and the rest are just me being, well, me.

10 Comedies for Me.

1. Sweeney Todd. Hey, even before I was in it, I thought it was funny. It's about eating people. Besides, if you watch the Johnny Depp one and close your eyes, you can imagine that it is Jack Sparrow singing about eating people.
2. Delicatessen. Vegetarian vigilantes, and a sex scene involving one of those containers that you flip and it goes moo. Enough said.
3. Moulin Rouge!. Weird movies often come across as funny and this one is no exception for me.
4. March of the Penguins. I know it isn't a comedy, but when you spend the entire movie exhorting one of the penguins (we call him Bob) to get back in the circle, well, it becomes funny.
5. Avatar. I'm not sure I'd watch it again, which would normally get it the boot from the list, but USB aliens are inherently funny. Similar could be said about Watchmen, because of some cinematic choices.
6. A Clockwork Orange. It's dark and while it isn't meant to be funny, some of the horribleness goes so far that it flips briefly to the other side.
7. Boron, sorry, The Fifth Element is funny for a lot of reasons, including the black hole of evil.
8. Dorkness Rising. It's funny for gamers, and possibly friends of gamers. Not sure if it expands past that.
9. Starship Troopers. Hey, it's got Doogie Howser in it! You know, from before Dr. Horrible.
10. Being John Malkovich. You know it is something when an actor is so stereotyped as kooky that an entire movie is based on the premise. This movie is tied for me with I Heart Huckabees.

I just have to say that without either the Netflix instant queue or the genre listings at IMDb, these lists would be 3 entries long. I tend to watch the same movies over and over, and I forget titles fairly easily. And now I'm going to try to survive on super subpar sleep (and take my sleeping meds tonight).

sometimes aesthetics win out

Yesterday, E and I went to see a movie after work. My husband really dislikes the feeling of even the Starbucks end of coffee shops, so I took the opportunity to go to the Thinking Cup, which while not the fanciest coffee place I've been too is probably in the top 10.

I had a light dinner with a goat cheese, arugula and apricot jam sandwich on a skinny bagette and this coffee.

There is something lost when you get your fancy coffee to go, because part of the experience is the art, the beauty of the milk swirling with the mocha (and/or espresso). Flowers and hearts are probably the two most common images in the cup, but they are wonderful to look at and linger with careful sips throughout the beverage.

Of course, being me, I couldn't just have a light sandwich and a beautiful coffee, so I had a small tart with a flaky short bread crust, and a marscapone and nectarine filling. Hey, there was fruit, so it was healthy, right?

The movie was awesome. Horrible, sad, depressing and uplifting and funny in turns. Definitely bring tissues, because there are a number of scenes that are just tear-jerkingly sad. Everyone I know who watched the movie has been talking about it, because it is well done and powerful.

Now I really want to read the book, because I blew one of my rules of movie (and musical) watching. Normally I read the original first, so I know what is going on and the flow of the writer's original vision. Books, more than movies for me, are a collaboration between the reader and the writer. It is just a less passive form of expression to read the words and ideas than to see them laid out before your eyes.

Of course, the spell of a good movie could have easily been broken by the trip home, but that too was just about perfect. I caught the Ashmont line and got to the end only minutes before the bus, so I didn't need to sit at the station waiting for an hour or walking the 4 miles home.

nothing useful to say

Last night a few friends and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie.  This time around I did not break out my double thick Ravenclaw scarf. 

I had a lot of problems with this latest movie.  Mostly in how they set things up for the final movie(s) and the choices they made in what to cut and what to keep.  There were definitely things I thought were important plot elements that either were not covered or just received the glancing blow.  Not a bad movie.  Just not what I was hoping for.

Of course, now I'm just really tired.  Bed was midnight, an unkind hour for a person who tends to wake up early.  Tonight I'm prepping an ice cream batch or two, which should be tasty treats for a party for a couple of friends on Saturday.  I think I will prep the Grape Sorbet first, so I know that I won't have the grapes go bad.  I'm dreadfully bad at keeping fruit all happy until I get around to eating it.  I need to remember to freeze more of it, so I can use it in the middle of winter or add it to a dessert without traipsing to the grocery store (like I'll be doing - hacked caprese dinner here I come).

I am knitting.  It's a sock.  Retro Rib is nearly to the toe of the first sock.  I want to work on the sweater, but if I stop working on the sock who knows when I will remember to come back to it.

the shrimp is not on the barbie

The April 2009 issue of Runner's World has a really amusing short piece about shrimp.  I'm sure that plenty of people across the world have actually seen it, because this shrimp was part of a scientific study in 2006.

Yes, this shrimp.

This shrimp ran for hours at its zippy (for a shrimp) pace of about 0.75 miles an hour.  My hubby and I watched this video Saturday night and again the following morning.  This is as good as the marmoset video, but has the added benefit of making me want to exercise!

The main disadvantage of running magazines, arguably also the main advantage, is that they make me want to change up my training.  There was an article about split trainings, and I decided I just couldn't face running my full long run all at once.  That doesn't make a lot of sense at my level, because my mileage isn't that high.  If I was running a marathon and needed to put in a 16 or 20 mile run, then I could understand wanting to split the run and do two runs at a bit over half the distance each (like 2 10-milers for the 16 mile long run).  My long runs though are only about 8 miles (or if I do them like Sunday's run a 3.1 mile in the morning with a the long run the next day).  Not quite enough distance to worry about splitting.  Even at my slow pace, 8 miles is under 1.5 hours of running.  Time to ramp up my workouts to shrimp-like levels!