The Jew Is Not Amused...

G-d is so weird sometimes.

We manage to finally have cool weather here in Northern Virginia UNTIL the day when the Jews, yours truly included, have to fast without food and water for 24 hours. Then, we get hot, sticky weather. That makes fasting so much easier... NOT! So, you can guess I was feeling majorly sorry for myself.

Picture it. I'm standing at the bus stop at 9 a.m. on my way to Yom Kippur morning services. I'd set my food drive bags down at my feet, because they were just too darned heavy in my weakened state. It's HOTTER than a witch's crotch out there and I'm pouring sweat. So, I'm mentally grumbling to myself about how much fasting sucks when I look up and a woman across the street catches my eye. She was skeletal, to say the least.

I remembered then why we fast, to reflect on those who are hungry and thirsty against their will, those who cannot merely choose to eat or not eat. I didn't know if that woman was so thin because of eating disorder or illness or poverty. It didn't matter. It doesn't matter. Whichever one it is, she couldn't have chosen (as I could) to just go home and eat. It is a blessing to be able to voluntarily fast, because it means that I have food and water every other day of the year.

No, I'm not saying there but by the grace of G-d go I. I don't believe that G-d's grace abandons the sick, poor, hungry, or oppressed. I believe G-d's grace moves us or should move us to reach out to the sick, poor, hungry and oppressed. Those who have are give the opportunity to help those who have less or nothing at all.

Anyway, I'm just saying "Message Received, G-d." But can't you just send me an e-mail next time?

Crash Course in Movies

Funny with Bunnies! Bunnies reenact all of your favorite flicks in 30 seconds. Also good for anyone wanting to learn all about the "classics" but not willing to sit through endless hours of film. Enjoy.

Flashback: Don't Watch TV with Melinda

The TV/Movie props meme turned out to be more difficult for a couple of the people I tagged than I thought. I'll admit that they came quite easy for me (although the movie one was easier) thanks to my lovely Communications degree and the UNO program's emphasis on TV and film. I even did my undergraduate honors thesis on the representation of alternative lifestyles in post-Stonewall American mainstream cinema. Yes, I'm that kind of movie nerd. (There is funny coming up soon enough, I promise.)

Anyway, I have a duel standard for movies, one for movies that aren't meant to be art and one for movies that are. So, I can enjoy crappy B-movies as much as serious arthouse fare, but for different reasons. The one thing I really can't stand is bad cinematography. No matter what, the camera work damned well better be right.

This leads to why you probably don't want to watch TV or videos with me. I yell at the screen when I see a bad shot. This would be obnoxious enough if it weren't for the fact that this habit pops up at the worst times.

One day long ago, I was watching TV with my sister's boyfriend when we discovered accidentally that my Mom's satellite dish was picking up Playboy. Mom and Sis were out shopping or something, so it was just us "guys". I'm not much of a porn afficionado but it was soft porn with lesbians. Not to mention that ordering my sister's boyfriend to turn off porn would be like ordering a Vulcan to smile. Completely and utterly futile, I'd say.

Anyway, mid semi-hot lesbian group sex scene (only semi because they were doing it wrong), the camera man lost his freaking mind and started doing bad zooms and taking shots of the curtains. Why a cameraman shooting a porn would pull off of attractive naked women to show the crappy tan drapes I'll never know! Not to mention the completely useless closeups of completely insignificant body parts! Oh! And zooming in while shooting rarely works. Maybe in an action flick, but in porn? Please! Where did this guy learn to work a camera? Foto Hut!

Get the picture? That's exactly what my sister's boyfriend had to put up with while trying to enjoy his lesbian porn. The jerk even threatened to kick me out of my own mother's house! Can you believe the nerve of some people? Hmmmph! I can't help it if I have advanced sensibilities.

So, don't watch TV or videos or movies with Melinda. It's not good.

Funny... In An Ironic Way

Saint Gasoline has a cute comic about the evolution-creationism debate, which is funny in and of itself but even funnier since the "scientist" gets 8 across wrong. The first step in the scientific method is "Ask a question."

Movie Props

Someone is a bad influence. Anyway, I have a strange and rather ecclectic taste in movies. My Blockbuster queue is filled with documentaries, b-movies, sci-fi, foreign/indy flicks, oddball comedies, and the classics. For the "movie props," I've chosen a few of my favorites from a few different genres but I don't know if all of these would be in my top 10 movies, except "anything by Audrey Hepburn" which is always up there.

1. Redneck Zombies – a can of redneck zombie-killing deodorant or the original radioactive drum cum moonshine distiller that caused the redneck zombification in the first place (This is one of the worst movies ever, so it’s definitely a guilty pleasure.)

2. Pretty much anything worn or touched by Audrey Hepburn in any of her movies, but especially Serena, The Children’s Hour and My Fair Lady (Btw, “remaking” an Audrey Hepburn movie is a sacrilege and a blasphemy worthy of death by flogging!)

3. Plan 9 from Outer Space – the pie tin spaceship

4. Day of the Triffids – an “infant” and fully grown triffid

5. Better than Chocolate – Kim’s leather jacket and shades OR one of the window display signs Maggie holds in the “big” ending

6. Celestial Clockwork – a bottle of the “magic elixir” that turns women into sex-crazed loonies.

7. Victor/Victoria – Julie Andrews’ tux (In my imagination, it would actually fit.)

8. History of the World Part 1 – a set of stocks from the Inquisition scene

9. Idiocracy – a box or two of disposable clothes OR the Starbucks sign

10. The Seventh Seal – the chess set

I tag Stacey, Angie, Duck, Lauren, and RPP.