Mustache Twins

Little known fact: before he worked for Pawnee city government, Ron Swanson appeared in episode 4 of season 2 of No Reservations. 

#Ronppelganger

I'd know that 'stache anywhere. 

Things I learned from Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

There be spoilers ahead.  

1) Vampires have excellent taste in real estate.  

All I can see is a modern tree house and I LOVE IT.

2) Werewolves are hotter than vampires, both literally and figuratively.  This is just my own personal preference here, but I thought the actors playing the vampires were so blandly attractive.  And in some cases not even remotely attractive.  #BadContactsAndWigs.

 

Hey, girl, we heard you like werewolves.

Oh Mike Dexter, what have they done to you?

3) That being said, Vampirism gives you killer eye make-up.

4) Vampires can be pro-life which is weird considering they're ya know, DEAD.

5) Edward is basically Dexter.  In an attempt to be honest with his soon to be bride, Edward tells Bella that at one point he was a very snarly teen aged vampire, and rebelled against his "vegitarian father," Carlyle and FED ON HUMANS!  (LIKE THE AWFUL, HUMAN FEEDING VAMPIRE HE IS.)  But he only fed on men that were going to do bad things to women, so it's cool, but not cool.  This causes Bella to swoon and she crosses her fingers that she will one day be the good vampire that Edward is.  (Barf, Bella.  Could you be any more of a feminist nightmare?  Oh, wait...) 

6) Bella was wearing pajama jeans during above scene.  I swear I saw an elastic waistband on her jeans.  (Note: This was pre-demon baby gestation.  Otherwise I would've bought her some pajama jeans to bring to her baby demon shower, cause she totes needed them.)  She also wore sneakers without socks, so you know her feet were smelly.  She WOULD.

Your jeans may say sassy, but that waistband screams slob.

7) Bella's mom may or may not have been drunk at her wedding.  When Bella's dad notices the Cullen's wall covered in their graduation caps, Bella's mother gets way too excited about the arts and crafts project. "Oh, neat-o!  CRAFTS!  BELLA, WHERE ARE YOUUUUU?!  Oh, right in front of my face!"  That is a verbatim quote.  (No it isn't.  But almost.)

8) When CGI werewolves mind-meld, hilarious beta (teen)wolf angst ensues.  They also fall in love with babies, in a romantic way.  No pedo, Jacob!

Like I said, hilarious.

9) Vampire on human sex is surprisingly boring outside of True Blood, and Edward is more chaste than a nun, despite breaking headboards and shit.  Talk about anti-climactic.  If you think about it, Twilight is pretty soapy, (Jacob is in love with his ex-girlfriend's baby!  Bella is on her deathbed--will Edward save her?  Yes, BY EATING THE BABY OUT OF HER) so you'd think the sex would be just as soapy and over the top.  But nope!  Prude city. 

10) Vampires use yahoo to find out about vampire-human babies.  Can we not even get a BING! search in here?  I think that if you've lived that long, you would know about vampire-human babies, or at least have some old, smelly, microfiche or books or woodcuts about it just lying around in your amazing modern tree house.  Whatevs, not everyone is a book lover like me, but I'm pretty sure Amazon would have some Vampire-Human Demon Spawn for Dummies on Kindle. 

Vampire teeth are extremely sharp, all the better to perform cesareans of DOOM.

11)  Apparently vampires will keep an almost endless supply of human blood on hand, but no other kind of blood.  Isn't that kinda weird for vampires who only drink animal blood and who might find themselves in a situation where they are trapped inside their beautiful house because their "son's" annoying wife is gestating a demon spawn that looks to be the size of an elephant and there are CGI werewolves outside threatening to eat them and they can't go hunt for animal blood?  No?  Okay then.  

12) Vampires are sticklers for spelling and grammar, as evidenced by my favorite scene in the movie that occurred after the main end credits.  I'd really like to know their opinions on the new additions to the OED and how they feel about the constantly changing nature of language.  Wait, that's Part Two, isn't it?  Just a whole movie about grammar and syntax and WORD NERDS?!  It's like college all over again!  Guys, lets make wall art using our mortar boards!

13) I probably should've seen the Muppets instead.

No duh.

Gobble, gobble

Poor Thanksgiving.  Between Halloween and Christmas you don't have a chance.  Everyone forgets about you, probably because you're all about (albeit delicious) food and not enough about drinking, dressing like a sexy slut, and presents.  Turkey?  Parades?  Football?  Relaxing with friends and family? Meh.  But I don't want to forget about you, Thanksgiving, because I love you and I love an underdog, and you are the underdog of the holiday season.  So this year I decided to do some Thanksgiving themed crafts in an attempt to keep the spirit alive.  And they all feature my favorite material--felt!  

A lovely autumnal wreath

Some felt leaf garland

Felt turkey, meet LEGO turkey, felt Ron Swanson, and FRS's pretty, dark haired girlfriend, Snow White

Little acorn guy

Just do you, Thanksgiving, and don't worry about the rest.  You're lovely just the way you are.

VHS Colored Memories

Remember how I was feeling nostalgic for VHS tapes?  Apparently I'm not the only one!  Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher of Found Footage Fest have published a book all about the crazy wonderful covers of VHS.

I know what's on my Christmas List!  (via)

There's also some pretty sweet VHS laptop skins and iphone covers over on flavorwire along with some VHS art.  (Flavorwire is my go to for my VHS needs, apparently.)

Night of the Living Gourds

One of my favorites things about fall is pumpkins.  Really, what's not to love?  They're bright, come in numerous shapes and sizes, they're tasty, and even the word "pumpkins" is the best.  Not only is it a fun word to say, it's one of those words that seems to perfectly describe the object that it represents.  A rose by any other name may smell just as sweet, but a pumpkin by any other name would just be wrong.  Or something.  Anyway, I had a day off from work earlier in the week, so I decided to carve up my pumpkins.  This year I decided to do two pumpkins: one regular and one with some bite.


But before we get to the pumpkin carving portion of the blog, I'd like to take a minute to talk to you all about pumpkin transportation safety.  Always be sure to properly secure all pumpkins when transporting them.  You don't want your pumpkins rolling around your vehicle and risk getting busted, do you?

Alright, to the carving!  I've been watching a lot of Martha Stewart lately and saw these pumpkins on her show.  Back in August or September I went to an outdoor showing of New Moon and they gave out these glow in the dark fangs to everyone in the audience.  I never got rid of them, and when I saw Martha's pumpkins I knew I'd have to make one and was super excited to actually get the chance to use the fangs again.

"Say it!"  "You're a, a, A PUMPKIN!"

It took me forever to decide what to do with my other pumpkin.  Last year I carved up an owl and it turned out pretty cute, but I didn't know if I wanted to do it again.  I briefly entertained the idea of doing a Ron Swanson pumpkin or a narwhal pumpkin with the stem acting as a horn, but I'm honestly not that skilled at carving.  So I figured I'd be boring and go with the owl again.  To aide in my carving I ended buying one of those pumpkin carving tool kits at Target.  Let me tell you, that was some of the best four dollars and change I've ever spent.  It really helped speed up the process, especially compared to the paring knife and ice pick combo I used last year.  Yeesh.  DO NOT RECOMMEND. 

So with the aide of my nifty new kit, I started scooping out the seeds and strings and goop, which is one of my favorite parts of pumpkin carving.  There's just something so fun about being elbow deep in some glop.  Kinda like when you were a kid and played in the mud; it's dirty, messy, and kinda gross, but that's part of the appeal.  After scraping all the guck out, I sketched the basic outline of what I wanted my owl to look like on the actual pumpkin, using the ridges as a guide.  I probably could've drawn it out on a piece of paper and then transferred it onto the pumpkin, but I kinda just wanted to start carving and see where it would go.     

Happy Owl-Ween!

What I really liked about this pumpkin was that it had a great round shape, a twisty stem, and these green stripes running down the sides.  The owl only adds to the pumpkin's greatness, in my opinion.

There's one more little pumpkin that I carved up, but instead of using gourd, I used felt.  You might not know this, but I LOVE felt and there are tons of really cool felt crafting books out there.  I bought this book not too long ago and decided to make one of the little felties out of it the other night when I was watching The Walking Dead, because I wanted to craft but also wanted to stay in theme.

To kill a Zomb-kin, rub with olive oil, salt and pepper, and cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

He may be the rotting, re-animated rind of a pumpkin, but his goopy seed-brains are sequined and FABULOUS.  For some reason I kept loosing him that night and it amused me to imagine him running around the house terrorizing the produce.  ZEEEST! ZEEEST!  (That's pumpkin-zombie for brains.  Duh.) 

Happy Halloween! 

I ♥ John Waters

Two reasons (out of many) that I love John Waters:

 

Never change, John.  

Deep Fried Ambassador

The other day I was over on facebook and saw that the NC State Fair is running a contest for the Deep Fried Ambassador to do some guest blogging.  As soon as I saw the post, I knew I had to enter.  Consider this my official entry into the contest to be the Deep Fried Ambassador for the NC State fair.

The NC State fair is one of my favorite events of the whole year.  In my mind, it's the official start to fall, which just so happens to be my most favorite season.  I love it so much that last year I went two nights in a row.  When the fair rolls around I immediately think of the fair scenes in Charlotte's Web, particularly the scenes from the animated movie where Templeton fantasizes about the food he will eat and when he actually runs around collecting, ingesting, and gleefully rolling around in scraps from the fair.  That image of Templeton encapsulates the fair for me: there are these little crumbs of joy (and sometimes bewilderment) to be found and enjoy. It's a smorgasbord of wonder that can leave you feeling elated or sick to your stomach. Or both.  And really, what's not to love?  The farm animals, the crafts, the pig races, the butter sculptures, the blue ribbon winning giant pumpkins, the midway and the rides, the freak shows, and of course, the FOOD.  I'm already drooling. 

One of the coolest things ever would be the chance to be the Deep Fried Ambassador and be a part of the Deep Fried Crew.  I would love the chance to be a part of the action and take a peek behind the curtain.  Why should I be picked to be this year's Ambassador?  Because I love to try new things and then share the experience with others.  If I'm picked, I hope to contribute some fun, witty blogs that share my love of the fair.  NC State Fair 2011, I can't wait to see you!

"Thank you, Sir! May I Have Another!": How I Came to Bikram's Torture Chamber and Why I Continue to Go Back

For a long while, I've needed something. I've endured that vague, indefinable void that presses in the pit of my stomach more times than I can count and with varying degrees of intensity. I have lost and found purpose in waves.

I've been in and out of psychologists' and psychiatrists' offices since I was eighteen years old. I have used just about every hard-core and soft-core drug at least once and some to the point of addiction. I have debated bankruptcy on a couple of occasions. There was a time in my life I gave myself to every man that was interested just to boost my self-esteem for a couple of hours. I have been physically and sexually assaulted. I have had a gun held to my head. For years, and sometimes still, my favorite activity was planning my suicide and how best to make it look like an accident so that my parents wouldn't be as ashamed as I imagined they'd be if I just swallowed a bunch of pills. (My favorite plan was a car accident: a road with a sharp almost 90 degree turn that happened as it brushed the edge of the Intracoastal Waterway in a less developed area, late on a rainy fall night. Drowning appealed to me, for some reason. The slow ebbing out of life. The excruciating burning of my lungs. My ears filled with the sound of my own pounding heart and the rush of water. I had it planned down to the date.) I was too much of a coward to ever go through with it. I still am.

I am morbidly obese. I have hypothyroidism, chronic clinical depression (my psychiatrist told me last year never to stop taking anti-depressants again), and am running very close to needing to be medicated for high cholesterol and high blood pressure. My menstrual cycle has never, I repeat NEVER, been regular and has, at various points in my life, caused me to have to take iron supplements for anemia. I have migraines. I have had blood clots. When I was 14, a skateboarding accident dislocated my hip-- I never sought medical attention and it took several years before I regained a full range of motion in it; I walk perceptibly off balance because of it and suffer mild but constant lower-back pain. I have dislocated my shoulder in a game of basketball.

More recently, I fell down some rather steep concrete stairs and rather seriously pinched my sciatica which has caused me some pretty serious lower back and leg pain (though I did get to try muscle relaxers for the first time. Those were fun). My knees got so bad this summer that I could barely make it up and down stairs. My feet suddenly started bothering me this summer to the point that I could not walk without a significant limp. Worse yet, type one diabetes runs on my mother's side and type two on my father's. Since I was young, doctors have considered it only a matter of time before I have it too. I eat atrociously and have been diagnosed with eating disorders. I binge eat, starve myself, have taken laxatives and diuretics, have taken ephedrine and any pill or vitamin advertising that it boosts metabolism. There have been endless swallows of thick, tinny, artificially-flavored Slim-Fasts, Weight Watchers meetings, microwaved Lean Cuisines, and contemplations of plastic surgery. There have been gym memberships that were used for about two weeks and then abandoned. There has been forced vomiting, cutting, and deliberate over-medication.

I suffer from agonizing self-consciousness that makes being in public places a significant trial. Social anxiety has plagued me since I was a child. I hate exercise mostly because I hate gyms, exercise clothes, and I especially hate people. Well, not people but the public. Only once in my life have I ever been able to achieve much through exercise and that was when I had a treadmill in my bedroom and a stack of Power Yoga videos. Unfortunately, a bout of severe depression killed my exercise drive, and try as I might, I've never gotten it back.

I need something. And I don't know what. I decided to get my Master's and now my Ph.D., and though I was accepted to more than one program, I'm afraid I chose the wrong one. Since I came to be where I am now, I have struggled with the longest running, deepest bout of depression I have ever endured. I will avoid the specifics for now; suffice it to say that I have been mentally and physically paralyzed with deep anxiety, panic attacks, fear, anger, self-loathing, and self-consciousness. My psychiatrist keeps telling me I need to exercise in order to control the anxiety and anger. My doctor keeps telling me I need to exercise in order to lose some weight. I kept trying at private clubs, my apartment complex gym, and at the student recreation center on campus, but I felt as though every eye in the place was on me, judging me, criticizing what I was wearing, how I was exercising, and what exercises I chose to do. Now, there is a part of me that understands that this is not the case. However, what my brain understands and what my heart feels are two very different things, and the sense of panic and self-consciousness always takes over. Inevitably, I leave in tears and head towards the nearest high-fat, high-calorie, high-sodium comfort food I can find.

This summer I read an article about Bikram Yoga. *Disclaimer* I in no way endorse, support, or claim any allegiance with either Paige Williams or Oprah. In fact, I kind of hate Oprah's show and even more so her magazine, television network, and book club selections. But that's neither here nor there. I just stumbled across the article and was fascinated. Anyhow, I was interested, looked up a few more things about Bikram Yoga, and then put the idea out of my head mostly because of the cost.

It haunted me though. I thought back on what I had learned both from reading about the practice, studies about it's benefits or lack thereof, and about its controversial founder, Bikram Choudhury. It was unlike the yoga I had practiced before. In fact, I had rather gotten interested in the yoga lifestyle a few years ago but was never able to make the principles fully mesh with my own, mostly, I think, because of the irregularity of my practice. At any rate, when the summer was over, I decided I would give it a shot. On the Bikram Yoga site is this quote from Choudhury:



It struck a chord with me. I realized I had written myself off. Not necessarily because I was too old or too sick but because I just didn't like myself. I wanted to start from scratch. The idea of reshaping myself emotionally, mentally, and physically appealed to me. I wanted to sculpt myself-- not in the sense of shaping my muscles or defining my waistline, though that may be part of it eventually. I wanted to re-sculpt my whole life. I have long lived with the sense that if something is meant to be, it will happen. And I don't not believe that, but it has, in recent years, given my life a feeling of being out of control. I feel as though almost everything I've been doing is trying to please someone else: make amends to my parents for being a bad child, make amends to my friends and lovers because I asked too much of them in asking that they fulfill me and lend my life purpose. No, I want control of myself now. If I could get that control, then that was going to be worth every single penny I put into it. And I felt, I feel, like I can get that in Bikram Yoga.

The first class I spent most of the time sitting or lying on my mat trying not to throw up and not to pass out. The instructor called it Bikram's Torture Chamber, and I wholeheartedly agreed (and still agree). For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, it involves practicing a sequence of 26 postures in a room heated to 105 degrees and 40% humidity. I have never sweat so much in my life. Never. And the room has a perpetual odor of sweat (it's not strong or particularly unpleasant, but for the uninitiated, it can be startling at first) and no wonder. I watched the men and women practicing in front of me lose enough water through their skin to irrigate my garden. I overheard a fellow student say after class the other day that she wondered that a cloud didn't form in the room and start to rain, and I believe that one day it will be a distinct possibility.

It was the heat that got me on the first class. When I left, I swore that I would not go back. No sane human would care to endure that voluntarily. That class kicked my ass. Hard. But after class a woman came up to me and said, "Congratulations. You've just done something really wonderful for yourself." Her words stuck with me for the rest of the day and still do.

And she was right. For the rest of the day, I had this loose feeling in my back, neck, hips, and shoulders. I felt calmer and more focused. Doing my work didn't seem like something I had to gear myself up to do; instead, it was just something that needed to be done, and it seemed easier to just go ahead and do it than fret about it and not do it. I had a feeling of peace and calm, and the power of language completely fails me when I try and describe where it may have come from or how I reached it. It just was.

I went back the next day. I felt like a masochist and a glutton. I couldn't fathom, and still can't some days, why I go back. I just get my ass handed to me over and over and over again. The second class was just as awful and difficult. And I continue to go back and each time I'm astounded by how hot it is and how much I am sweating and how much I would like to just throw up and leave the room. Some postures make me dizzy and others make me nauseated. Camel pose, for reasons I do not understand and do not think Western science could explain, brings so much emotion welling up in me every single time that it's everything I can do not to cry. But I don't cry (though I could. With all the sweat, who would know the difference?). I don't leave the room. I make it through every class, all 90 interminable minutes, though I have yet to make it through a class without having to sit down or lie down.

Every day I get up and debate with myself: Am I going to go back to Bikram Yoga today? The sore muscles in my legs and shoulders shout, "Hell No!" My brain is like, "The heat! My god the heat!" And my heart always says, "Go do something good for yourself from yourself."

I've only been a few times. I need to go more. I even am at the point where I had a conversation with a fellow student about how to move from a few classes to an actual practice. Part of me feels masochistic. But it's the only exercise I've found where I can walk in the room and not feel judged by other people. I don't feel like everyone is looking at me. They're too busy looking at themselves in the mirror trying to figure out how to twist one leg around the other leg and one arm around the other arm for Eagle Pose. And I don't feel like the instructor is judging my inability but rather observing my success and offering opportunities to improve. Overall, the generosity of spirit and motivation that I get when I enter the studio is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have never heard anyone say a bad thing to anyone else; I only hear compliments and words of encouragement.

It's such a positive space-- the exact opposite of where I spend the rest of my day struggling in my doctoral program that seems to be designed to tear me down in every way possible and leave me weeping until I'm nothing left but a puddle on the floor. It seems a gatekeeping strategy designed to create an intellectual exclusivity-- an idea I fully reject. At Bikram, I feel torn down, physically, mentally, emotionally but not to be left that way. Bikram tears me down in order to rebuild a better me. And the best thing about it is that I don't feel compelled to rebuild to be like someone else. The Bikram Yoga instructor doesn't model poses but only speaks a dialogue. I don't feel like I have to do as well as the instructor, nor do I feel as though I'm falling short. As my instructors say, "Your practice is your practice. Each day is different. Do the best you can do today." They also quote Bikram as saying that "you are your own true teacher."

The rhetoric of Bikram Yoga is fascinating, both the instructional dialogue and the talk that circulates in the studio. I can never shut off the part of my brain that has been trained, these long years in the university, to critically examine everything that is said. So there is much that is said at which I smile and nod and leave be. But I listen carefully to the talk and to my body and the rhetoric that seemed absurd before begins to make sense now. I understand, though maybe not with my mind. My instructor says, "Lose your mind."

The benefits are innumerable. After my seventh class, I feel stronger. The class is so comprehensive in that it requires everything of me: mentally, physically, and emotionally. And I feel like I get everything back that I put in and then some. I can hold my arms up longer and my balance is improving. I make it through more and more postures. When I lie on my back, I can actually feel that my spine has changed position a tiny bit as the pressure points have changed. My knees don't hurt as much nor does my back. I am clearer and more focused all day. I have a ton more energy than I remember ever having in recent years, and I accomplish much more during a day. I have aches and pains but the kind that make you feel good about yourself, like you've done a good, hard day's work. I spend a great deal less time in mental reflection. I used to spend most of my days staring at the wall crying or trying to motivate myself. I feel more emotionally stable, happier, more content. My skin is clearer and cleaner. I drink water now-- I almost never did before. I crave it. I eat better because I want to eat better, because eating better makes me feel good. Before fatty, high-calorie foods made me feel better...and sleepy. But after Bikram Yoga, I find myself avoiding meats and cheeses in favor of fruits and vegetables, especially ones with a high water content. I don't want anything heavy on my stomach. I ate a cheeseburger the other day and felt very, very sick.

I no longer want to lie in bed all day and hide. If I have a bad faculty meeting, a bad class, or something bad happens, it barely touches me now. A few weeks ago, it would have sent me to my room to hide under the covers and cry. Bad things just seem to roll off me now. I am much less quick to be irritable and frustrated; I listen better and thus communicate better. I'm more open to the world and to the people in it now that what they do and say doesn't injure me quite so deeply. Bikram Yoga has taught me about the power of group energy and communication, so now when I walk across campus and see everyone listening to their MP3 player or engrossed in talking or texting someone else instead of communicating with each other, I understand how deeply destructive that lack of connection can be.

Most of all, I feel excited about the future. I'm no longer looking to friends and lovers to give my life purpose. I am in control of my mind and my body. Any voids or senses of loss are my own to fill. Instead of being oppressed by an indefinable need, I am excited by the prospect of all that I can use to fill it.

Who's Your Mummy

Guys, I need to make a confession. You know The Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser? I like them a lot. I think they are fun action adventure movies that are somewhat self aware and don't take themselves too seriously, and whenever they are on TV I watch them, but up until a month ago I'd never seen the third one. So imagine my surprise when I accidentally started watching it on FX one night. I had been watching a re-run of Archer and was slow to change the channel after it ended because I was working on some crafts. So I left it on FX and quickly got sucked into the movie before I even realized it was the Mummy 3. This movie was so great in a bad way that I figured I'd recap it here. So this is your fair warning to stop reading if you don't want spoilers.

The Mummy 3 opens in ancient China with Jet Li playing an evil emperor trying to have it all; a powerful army, control over the elements, and immortality. Just normal evil emperor stuff. In an attempt to get is emperor EGOT, the Emperor sends his bff and head general of his army to find a sorceress who can grant him eternal life. That was a BAD CALL, Emperor, because we all know that the general is going to give the sorceress the business, no duh. The Emperor confirms this by spying on them while they are in bed, but acts like it's all good and tells the Sorceress to go ahead and make him an immortal already. The Sorceress has this old book with all the mystical magic secrets from forever in it, and it's written in Sanskrit, which is a key detail because the emperor doesn't speak Sanskrit. So the Sorceress says the ancient, mystical, Sanskrit spell, and the emperor's immortality senses start tingling. He just knows that he's immortal now. He can totally feel it going through him. IMMORTALITY, FOREVER!

Now that his immortality has been taken care of, it's time to deal with those assholes that were boning under his nose. He takes the Sorceress out to the balcony where she can see her Secret Agent General Man being drawn and quartered, unless she agrees to be his queen. Sorceress is all, you're totally gonna kill us both anyway. Jet Li is all DUH, and then the General is offed while Jet Li and the sorceress struggle and he eventually stabs her in the side. This is where things start to get really weird and gross, 'cause the Emperor starts leaking motor oil or something from his eyes, I guess because he's a robot without empathy software, and then he starts barfing lava in a really crappily done CGI'ed way. (It was at this point I thought wait, is this a Brendan Frasier Mummy movie? Please let it be so!) While this is happening, the Sorceress is crawling away with the Monster Book of Monster Spells and lets the Emperor know HE BURNT, 'cause she didn't give him immorality, she cursed him and his army. Cut to: Emperor's army leaking motor oil and lava barfing. Cut to title card: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. YESSS!

Admit it: this is sitting in your Netflix queue.

The next scene opens with Brendan Frasier having A River Runs Through It moment and failing miserably at fly fishing. After getting the lure stuck in his neck, he whips out his gun and starts shooting at the fish because that's what adventurous, manly men are wont to do. Just ask Ernest Hemingway. Brendan packs up his shrapnel seasoned fish and drives back to his mansion. (Yes, you read that right. And no, I don't get how he could possibly have a mansion, either.) After being told by his butler (mummy killing must be a very lucrative business) that Evie is on the way home, Brendan goes upstairs to finger his old uniforms and fondly remember his past as a real life adventurer and forget that he's a sad old dude with a fishing lure still stuck in his neck. We then drop in on a bookstore (remember those?) where a lovely British lady is reading from her best selling Mummy novel series. But for some reason the camera doesn't show her face...hmm, how odd. She finishes up her reading and customers are asking if there will be a third book and if the female character is really based on her. The camera finally pans to the lady's face, where we see it is not the lovely Rachel Weisz, but the woman that played the sassy bar owner in Coyote Ugly. New Evie says, "why no, I'd say we're completely different people." Very clever, Mummy 3!

Pictured: Not Rachel Weisz

Eventually New Evie makes her way home where her and Brendan have a talk about how they are retired from the mummy and espionage business and oh man isn't that boring, and how they have a college aged son that is up to all sorts of college aged trouble. UH OH. The scene cuts to Brendan and New Evie's son, and ooooh what a bad kid he is. He should be having all of the sex and alcohol and drugs like a good college kid, but instead he is digging up old crap out in the desert. Lame, son. But it turns out that he's digging up the famous Terracotta Army, and he says soon it won't be that he's Rick O'Connell's son, but that Rick is Alex O'Connell's father! (This is called TENSION).  Baby O'Connell and some other random guy go down into the dig to poke around and Baby gets attacked by a random ninja, but seems to think nothing of it. Totally normal, nothing to see here. That's just ninjas. The scene cuts back to Brendan and New Evie who have a visitor telling them all about this giant gemstone called the Eye of Shangri-La that the British government wants them to back to China for some reason. I don't know why; I think I got up to make tater tots at this point. But anyway, they jump at the chance because they are old and boring and retired now, and they've been meaning to see New Evie's brother who conveniently lives in Shanghai.

Next stop, Shanghai! New Evie's brother has opened up a pyramid shaped Hard Rock restaurant in Myrtle Beach popular art deco Egyptian themed nightclub called Imhotep's. You can take the adventurer out of Egypt, but you can't take the Egypt out of the adventurer. Or something.  That's how that saying goes, right?  Anyway, bad seed Alex just so happens to be there and tries to hit on this pretty young lady, but guess what? She's taken! By some guy named Mad Dog who also happens to know Alex O'Connell's father! Just when Mad Dog is about to go 20/20 on his ass, Brendan and Evie show up and they all hug it out. Whew, talk about a close one. I should probably mention that there's another Chinese general who wants to resurrect Jet Li because he has a thing for zombie lava barfers. And the old random guy at the dig is totally in on it. So the happy family is on their way to the opening of the Jet Li and his Merry Band of Terracotta Warriors exhibit, but the Generalissimo and Random Guy are there to take the gemstone and bring Jet Li back to life. YIIIKES. Also in attendance is the random ninja from the tomb, who happens to be a very lovely lady named Lin that Baby O'Connell has apparently previously hit on. Bad boy ladies man, am I right? Because of all the digging in the sand adventure!

A kerfuffle then breaks out and zombie Jet Li is accidentally brought back to life. Guys, this is NOT GOOD. Zombie Jet Li is totes mad, probably due the the fact that he's been a Chia-Pet for centuries. And you can tell he's mad by the fact that his face starts to break off and then bursts into flames to reveal a freshly fired face right out of the kiln. (Get it? Pottery jokes.) So he takes off to find the location of Shangri-La so that he might break the curse and turn himself back into a real boy. The Family O'Connoll follows him into the Himalayas with the help of Mad Dog, who just so happens to own a plane. During the flight they encounter bad weather that causes the plane to be knocked about and thus knocks about everyone inside it. For reasons that aren't explained, one of the passengers happens to be a yak who starts to look very queasy. Evie's brother is ever so kind to hold a barf bag for the yak, but as the plane makes a bumpy landing the contents of the bag dump all over him and the yak. "What's that smell?" Evie 2.0 asks. "The yak got a little airsick" explains the brother. I laughed for a good three minutes at this joke. The yak yaked. Bwahaha. Poor yak. That grass before the plane ride was probably a bad idea, but it happens to the best of us.

After getting the yak some ginger ale and crackers, the gang makes their way to a tower that will reveal the top secret location of Shangri-La. Too bad they are tardy to the tower party, cause Jet Li is already there. But wait! On top of being a ninja, Lin knows how to speak Yeti. She calls out to the Yeti, and it turns out that Yeti aren't imaginary creatures, they are simply endangered ones, as only three show up. Three terribly CGI'ed Yetis against one undead piece of emperor pottery. Those odds seem pretty good, no? NOPE. WRONG. Those odds are not good, because Undead Pottery > 3 Yetis on the magical creatures scale. (Not gonna lie, this and the yak scene were my favorite things about this movie. It's how I knew it was a good one.) After a snowball fight, the emperor escapes with the location of Shangri-La and tries to kill the son of Rick O'Connell, but Rick O'Connell himself steps in and saves his son! And don't worry about the emperor getting to Shangri-La before them, cause Rick O'Connell's son makes an avalanche and somehow this makes it possible for them to get there first this time. Deus ex machina FTW!

Nothing says "good movie" like CGI Yetis.

So remember how Lin was a ninja and spoke Yeti and it was like is there anything she CAN'T do? Well as it turns out there is something she can't do, and that thing is die. You probably didn't see this coming, but her mother is the sorceress from the beginning! Lin and the sorceress live at Shangri-La and have kept Jet Li trapped in his terracotta coffin all these years, and they would've kept it that way if it wasn't for those meddling O'Connells. Eventually Jet Li finds Shangri-La and bathes in this pool of water that gives him the ability to transform into a dragon who then kidnaps Lin and flys off to meet his terracotta army at the Great Wall. Ohhhh, Mummy 3! I hate that your fun must end.

To make a long story short, the Sorceress offers up her and Lin's immortality so she can raise the dead entombed in the wall and use them against the emperor's army. The sorceress is then killed, and Rick and his son O'Connell somehow manage to kill Jet Li with this broken dagger that had been cursed by the Sorceress. Jet Li melts into a puddle of lava vomit and all is right with the world. Hooray! The End.

This blog-cap has been approved by Brendan Fraser.

There you have it, a recap of The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Would you hold it against me if I went out and bought The Mummy Trilogy? Because I saw it at Target and I totally think it's a good buy. Definitely going to go do that now. Be safe out there, guys and stay away from mummies!

10 Reasons Why the Original Clash of the Titans is Better Than the Remake

If only on a campy B-movie classic fantasy level.


1) Young Harry Hamlin

2) Professor McGonagall Maggie Smith 

 

3) Ray Harryhausen and his stop motion animation 

4) Mechanical owls

 

5) Andromeda's sparkly sacrificial Kraken outfit.  (Not pictured: her silver sandals) 

 

6) Zesus' heavenly party place 

 

7) Lack of 3-D

 

8)  Medusa's Cadbury Creme Egg filing

 

9) Kraken abs (Kraken hobbies: swimming, terrorizing, eating young maidens, cross stitch, working out)

 

10) This face (ACTING!)

 

Beatles meet Muppets

Saw this the other day and have been in love ever since.

Extinguishing Humanity: Thinking About the End of _The Road_

I'm teaching The Road by Cormac McCarthy to my English 102 students, and we have finally come to the end of the book. The final paragraph is one of the most contested paragraphs in contemporary literature:

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.

Many read the final sentence as a sign that the world will survive whatever cataclysmic event prompted the man's and the boy's journey in the first place. They read the final sentence to say that the trout are alive and have survived what nothing else could. It's a very optimistic reading, in my opinion. And yet, The Road does end on a note of optimism. Though the man dies, the boy is not raped or eaten by cannibals as his mother feared would happen to them. Instead, he is taken in by another family-- more "good guys." The man has spent most of the journey in extreme fear and paranoia (for good reason), but in the end we find there are still good people in the world. And, if we read the final paragraph to indicate that brook trout have survived the apocalypse, then the man's incessant push to survive, his hope against all hope, pays off. It is the most elemental struggle, the struggle to survive. The man's notion that the boy, messiah-like, carries "the flame," whether that be the flame of goodness, faith, or life, ends up being true.

I take a more pessimistic approach. I latch on to the first word of the last paragraph: "Once." As in "Once upon at time...". The final paragraph indicates neither survival nor success nor truth. Instead, it indicates a choice. It undercuts the story of survival and goes beneath the something much more human and points to the truth not that survival is imminent but that it is a choice. The decisions that we make have cumulative and, in some cases, catastrophic outcomes. "On their backs were vermiculate patters that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again." The text points to a course of events that cannot be reproduced or traced in reverse. It is weighted with warning that what is done now cannot be undone. And yet it beams with a positive view of humanity, that we can make the better decisions yet.

Whenever a friend or colleague finds out I am teaching this book, they comment on how depressing it is. I agree. And yet, what I really like about this book isn't what it says or describes about the last breaths of a dying world. Instead, I love this book because it constantly reminds me about what is outside the text-- literally. It makes me look up, take a deep breath, and say, in the voice of Louis Armstrong, "what a wonderful world." The catch is, the choice to make it a wonderful world are up to us.

Saved by the Reality Show

I just looked up Tori Spelling on IMDb because I had a brain fart and couldn't remember the full name of her character from Saved by the Bell. (For the record, it's Violet Anne Bickerstaff.) In addition to jogging my memory, I discovered that she's going to be on an episode of Hoarders. Anyone* who read her first trashy autobiography could tell you that. No duh, TLC.

*I may or may not have read all of her autobiographies. There's no way to know for sure. It's not like you could find copies on my bookshelf, or look at my library account or anything like that.

Neville Longbottom is cooler than you

...because he kicks ass in a fair isle sweater.

Finally saw Part 2 tonight and basically cried the whole time. Harry Potter has been a big deal to me, and I thought the movie was a pretty good conclusion to the series. And because I'm really cool, I went by myself and sat in the second row from the top, right where there are just two seats against the wall. Some teenagers walked in about 45 minutes after the movie started and said "FUCK!" really loudly when they saw me sitting there. I think I ruined their plans to make-out/fingerbang. Sorry, guys! But really, who goes to Harry Potter to fool around? Snape would not approve. Ten points from Gryffindor.



You'll stay with me? Always.

Muppet Love

Over the past few weeks there have been numerous articles online about The Muppets and their creator, Jim Henson. As a huge Muppets and Henson fan, this makes me super excited, with each article or blog post reminding me why I have so much love for Henson and his merry, furry band of puppets. One thing in particular that I have enjoyed is all the photos of Henson at work. Here are a few of my favorites.

Photo credit

Fraggle Rock is one of my all-time favorites shows. I was so in love with the Fraggles, I wanted to be one. Red, to be exact. Oh, how I longed for a Fraggle tail and Fraggle pigtails, and Fraggle pebbles and Fraggle everything, basically. So naturally I love this photo of Henson with The Fraggles. Let the music play...

Photo credit

One thing that I love about The Muppets is how real they are, and not just because they reside in the physical realm, unlike say, a CGI Nemo or Buzz Lightyear. Their lively personalities make it to forget they are essentially felt puppets, and this is a testament to the talent of the puppeteers and artists behind them. What I love about this picture is that Bert and Ernie feel separate from their puppeteers and yet still extensions of them. And I forgot how physical puppeteering could be! Frank Oz, Jim, and the other puppeteer are all arms and squished together, so much so that the third guy is (hilariously) right in Henson's armpit. That's dedication.

Photo credit

There's something about this photo that feels very intimate, as if the viewer is sneaking a peak at a quiet moment between Bert and Jim. What is Bert telling Jim that has his undivided attention? Could it be about the elegance of the pigeon? But just as you're contemplating the conversation, you remember Bert is a Muppet, and the image becomes an intimate glimpse of the artist engrossed with his work. And I just love the composition of this photo: the black and white, the full profile view of Henson with his legs pulled up and Bert on his arm, how the lighting creates an outline or a merge suggestion of Bert and Henson, the framing from the window behind them. Really beautiful.

Portrait of the Doctor as a Young Crustacean

I saw this make your own pom-pom conch kit at A.C. Moore and decided to buy it because it was fun, random, and cost a dollar. But I mostly bought it because the mouth tentacles reminded me of Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama.

I'll take eight! Woop, woop, woop, woop!

Dig the striped pipe cleaner shell.


I figure I can get some more pom-poms, pipe cleaners, googley eyes, and some felt and make a whole set of Futurama like characters. Maybe throw them on the tree for Christmas or something. Festive!

The Boy Who Almost Was

So much love for Neville Longbottom.

This Week in Happy News: Attack of the Baby Sloths

It's basically the most adorable attack ever. You should probably put some Slow Loris saliva on those sloth wounds to combat the cuteness. Even things out a bit.

Tyra-saurus Rex: RAWR is dinosaur for...

Little known fact: Tyrannosaurus Rex actually means "diva lizard queen" and not "tyrant lizard king" as previously thought. True story.

The Many Shirtless Poses of Alec Baldwin

Over on buzzfeed there's a post on the Top 16 Shirtless Alec Baldwin Pictures. While I very much enjoy Alec Baldwin shirtless (or non-shirtless) I had two complaints about this post. One, some of the pictures were very similar, and I feel it should be about quality over quantity. And two, all of the pictures were of young Alec. Can older Alec not get any love? Did he turn 40 and stop taking his shirt off? Anyway, here are my picks for the top shirtless Alec photos.


Very intense. This is what Tyra Banks calls "smizing."



Post-sex glow with Meryl Strep.


Someone has turned into quite the silver fox.


What a bad boy. ROWR.


Honestly I just like that mint green wall and how it brings out the colors in the painting/Alec's tattoo. (Does the color look weird to anyone else?)


WHOOPS, NOT ALEC!


So dreamy. So hairy.


From a classic SNL. Hooty-hoo, Mr. Owl.

And finally:

A tasteful black and white. Very artsy.