(no subject)

Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes. I haven't been around the last couple of days because things have been kind of unpleasant--just the normal friction you can imagine having when two sisters have their birthdays within three days of each other and the resultant drama about who can or cannot come to whichever gathering and how you juggle those two. Also, my sister tends to get depressed around her birthday anyway. I was depressed because of Meko, so the whole thing was kind of sad and quiet and rainy and grey, but it wasn't a bad birthday.

We did go to see King Kong, which is an excellent monster movie, although it may strain your squeam tolerance. It did not, however, change my life, make me cry, or even want to see it again any time soon, and while I could see it being nominated for Best Picture for the Populist Slot, as it were, I highly doubt it would actually win. ( Mild spoilers )

Speaking of Kong, I just got an email from the "narnia@filmpr.com" newsletter:

Friends of Narnia, we need your help! Narnia had a great opening last weekend at #1, but it now faces competition from other movies like "King Kong". We need you to do everything you can to help us keep Narnia at the #1 spot this weekend. If you haven't already seen the movie, PLEASE GO THIS WEEKEND. If you have, PLEASE GO AGAIN and BRING A FRIEND!

I love the straightforwardness of this plea. They're not even pretending that it's about anything other than the box office. It's not, "Go tell Jesus you love Him by seeing this movie," or "Prove what a good fan you are," it's just, "Please, help us make money. Seriously. We need it. For real. And bragging rights."

I wanna see an eventual The Horse and His Boy, so I'm more than happy to comply.


Yay! Three more icons for free LJ users!

Patriot Act renewal blocked in Senate on the grounds that more civil liberties protection needs to be written into it. 

'West Wing' Actor John Spencer Dies at 58.  

Showtime may rescue 'Arrested Development'. 

A list of songs eligible for the Best Song Oscar. Strangely, "Do the Hippogriff" is on there but I didn't see "Magic Works," which I kind of think is the better song. (Can you tell I originally found this link at the Leaky Cauldron?)

Study: 11M U.S. Adults Can't Read English. And it ain't "just them migrants" either: "Perhaps most sobering was that adult literacy dropped or was flat across every level of education, from people with graduate degrees to those who dropped out of high school. So even as more people get a formal education, the literacy rate is not rising. Federal officials say this trend is puzzling and worthy of research."

CUTE OVERLOOOOOOOOAAAD!

Launchcast has Christmas stations!

Scientists Figure Out Why Mona Lisa Smiles. You know, I think "why" is putting it a bit strongly. It's more like, "We may or may not be able to scientifically prove that she's 83% happy."

Speaking of the Mona Lisa, seek the DaVinci codes at this movie tie-in site. (I have not personally read The DaVinci Code, nor do I intend to.)

X-Men 3 promotional shots.

My professor would love this.

Indie Rockers Spread Collaborative Spirit. It's about Calexico and Iron and Wine, to be more specific.

And finally: I was on Wikipedia last night, and don't ask me how I ended up at "Irish Crown Jewels," but I did, and found the following footnote:

¹ Rumours of a homosexual ring in Dublin Castle were linked to claims about the theft. It was variously rumoured that Shackleton and/or Vicars were being blackmailed on account of their orientation, they or others in the Castle facilitating the theft to pay off the blackmailers or to "expose" Vicars' rumoured sex-life through an inquiry into the theft. The claim of homosexual rings in Dublin Castle was nothing new. One nationalist MP during the lord lieutenancy of the 5th Earl Spencer in the 1880s famously nicknamed the Lord Lieutenant's Dublin Castle administration Sodom and Begorrah.