Apparently I picked a bad day to stop wearing mesh shorts exclusively

I went to an engagement party.

That’s pretty much it.

I mean, I figured eventually the ladies of The View would be calling me out for something, but thought it would more likely be, for example, when my idea for a craps table with built-in urinals took off.  I’m pretty good at leaning on stuff, and I’m really good at drinking, so I thought any televised leaning/drinking exploits would be looked at in a more positive light.  Apparently, leaning/drinking and looking downward at a mass of people that have suddenly marched onto the street was an unnecessary flaunting of my privileged, son-of-a-truck-driver-with-poor-financial-acumen social status.

Let me revisit the sequence of events that led to that woman on Whoopi’s left likening this party to one of Marie Antoinette’s legendary soirees.  A good friend recently got engaged, and in a shocking and extravagant manner, the newly betrothed couple decided to invite their friends and family to celebrate said engagement at a nice restaurant.  (I did not know this practice was only customary for people who work on Wall Street, but judging from the shocked look on the hosts’ faces above – “OMG people in jackets and dresses smiling and drinking during the day!” -it must be.)

Being that 2011 is apparently the year of extreme weather in every season – with fall being no exception – many attendees (which, to my knowledge did not include the heads of any major investment banks or hedge funds) chose to enjoy their cocktails on the balcony.  (There were appetizers as well, but given the moral outrage that the mere sight of people drinking on a balcony caused – I am hesitant to reveal any details of the food that was also available on a balcony.)  At some point – I’m going to guess I was on drink number four  – a bunch of protestors showed up on the street below the restaurant.  I know it sounds irrational, but I – and some other “swells” – could not resist walking the three feet to the balcony’s ledge to see what was going on.

At this point, basically no one had heard of Occupy Wall Street.  There were some interesting signs and a little bit of the 99% chant, if I recall correctly, as the group coalesced into a semi-organized mass, conveniently right below the restaurant.  (I’m not really following the 99% thing, though.  Is it supposed to mean that 1% of the people in the country control the economy and you’re pissed that it’s impacting you in such a manner?  If it is, isn’t that more a political issue?  I don’t think it’s based on taxes paid, either, which would make more sense to me, if it’s a financial issue.  Anyway, I guess it’s catchy.  I have some experience in activism myself – I got Gristedes to change the price of Arriba salsa storewide from an absurd $7.99 to a still-absurd-but-it’s-Gristedes-and-it’s-the-only-place-that-has-Arriba $5.99 with just a couple emails to corporate.)  We waved at some people, checked out what was going on; I didn’t really get an animosity vibe from the crowd and i suspect they got only a curiosity vibe from we, the balcony people (although if they really only had peanut butter and sh*tty veggie pizza that first day, they probably should’ve revolted to get some of our food).  I finished my drink, went inside for another (the true error in judgment was probably allowing me access to an open bar) and forgot all about the “encounter.”

Then the next day someone posted the video on youtube – as I said, I didn’t get any hostile vibe at all during the actual five minutes that I was “looking down on the crowd”, but whoo-boy were the youtube commenters a different story.  “You should’ve firebombed the f*cking place!” and “Id have shot everyone in the throat and had sex with they’re corpse” and “that gray-haired f*cker has a big nose!” (Note: I’m all for making fun of people on the internet – hell, that’s one of my (money-losing) jobs – but I think suggesting the mass murder of a bunch of people you don’t know might signal a need for some internal reflection, or least a reduction in the amount of Red Bull consumed.)  Frankly, it’s pretty amazing how quickly a few graphic death threats can tarnish the memory of a nice celebration.

I resisted the urge to comment on that youtube video and forgot about it again.  Then I got an email from an Italian friend and somehow that image above (could have been the entire video, not sure from screen grab he sent) made it to the website of Italy’s biggest paper.  I had to wonder if my unphotogenic nature was somehow giving this image legs, like that one of Katy Perry without makeup?  Then I forgot about that, too, and have been in Arkansas helping with my dad for a couple of weeks, and then Saturday someone sent me this:

Whoopi: call me, happy to discuss as you suggested.  I suspect you’ll be disappointed at the divergence from the presumed narrative, as my lofty status in life is largely due to the considerable points I’ve racked up on my Qdoba Rewards card.  I won’t bore the seven regular readers of this site with a replay of my life story, but I’ve worked in a Tyson turkey processing factory with a bunch of Sling Blade types, spent some time sleeping in my car after failing out of college (Nissan 280ZX – surprisingly comfortable to sleep in, except for the fact that it somehow gets to be twenty degrees colder than the outside temperature), and toiled at the lowest ranks of the U.S. Navy. Poke around this site if you want more details – but I’m happy to play Costanza to any Andrea Dorea survivors who want to compare notes on background. Several of my friends literally laughed at loud at the idea of Chilly, child of privilege.

I did, obviously, catch many incredibly lucky breaks later on in life; I would love to say it was just intelligence, a winning personality and hard work that put me in the position to succeed.  But a whole bunch of it was just good fortune and taking a modest chance here and there.  After being laid off in late 2008 I’ve spent a lot of time having fun and trying my own ventures that have ranged from disappointing to wildly unsuccessful, so I’ll likely be working for the man again someday soon. It probably won’t be on Wall Street, as the Silver Fox look really only works for senior Managing Directors, not mid-level scrubs.  (And if I were to become a victim of mob vengeance, I have to think the mob would be sorely disappointed in their selection after reviewing my bank statements.  Likely epitaph: “They got the wrong guy.  This motherf*cker’s broke.”)

But for clarity’s sake, at this particular party, there were certainly some financial types in attendance – think Associate level, not Jamie Dimon level – but also many people who work in IT, teaching, non-profits, etc.  I’m not sure why anyone would begrudge a 27-28 year old their job on Wall Street; generally anyone in that position has made significant lifestyle compromises to get that position in the first place (worked hard in high school to get into good college, in college to get offer, and then once on the job the first 3-4 years are fairly brutal).  And not everyone who works on the Street is out synthesizing CDOs or creating other crazy derivative bets – at each institution there were probably only a handful of folks responsible for the mortgage mess; I didn’t know any of them at my firm.

As I said, I’m happy to go on The View and discuss the party and any other issues you want to talk about, like how much money bankers really make (hint: you aren’t rolling around Scrooge McDuck style for a long time) versus how crappy the lifestyle is, which tie brands are acceptable for meetings and how many days per week the average banker has foie gras for breakfast. You have my info sent via email.

Later,

Chilly17

(P.S. I’m the dude in that picture above, just in case it wasn’t clear.  I don’t know what’s up with that picture though, looks like I’m somehow parting my hair on both sides.  I have no explanation, but am considering wearing a football helmet when outside from here on out.)

(Edited to add:  I revised this post several times, and am still not too all that happy with how it turned out.  Wanted to maintain my trademark* “I’m an asshole” style, but I am also somewhat sympathetic with the protesters; also didn’t want to sound apologetic, as I/we didn’t do anything worthy of an apology.  I have, however, been saying for years that the ridiculous costs of going to even state schools are likely going to be a bigger problem than even the mortgage crisis going forward – the benefit is likely to come up well short of the investment – and the average OWS participant is pretty young.  I field a decent number of questions about college/grad school decisions, and I almost always have the same response – you need to try and figure out what is a likely/realistic return on your investment and see if that return justifies such an investment.  Eventually, undergraduate degrees aren’t even going to make sense for everyone, just too damn expensive if state schools are going to run you close to $100k in loans.  Since most jobs end up being mostly sales gigs in the long run, what’s the huge benefit of a four year degree, as long as you understand your products?

My secondary point, which is hard to glean from the text above but becomes more apparent if you peruse some of my older posts, is that I likely have more in common with the typical Occupy Wall Street protester than the people they are protesting.  Did I eventually have a pretty good job and make good money for a few years before getting canned?  Yes.  Did I pay a sh*t-ton of taxes (single, no dependents, owned nothing)?  Yes.  Did I give to charity?  Yes (but Operation Smile – you are f*cking pushing it.  I gave you money, I obviously know you exist: please quit mailing me four packets per week – and these days address labels aren’t all that helpful!)  Did I waste (opinions vary – I still hold that spreading multiple awful bets across the craps table is more therapeutic than -EV and everybody needs to have a few drinks now and then) most of the modest excess money I made?  Yes.  No regrets, everybody needs to do what they need to do.  But 23 years ago, I was in a pretty similar situation – few options, none of them particularly attractive.  I ended up on the right end of a bunch of coin flips, things pretty much went my way.  That doesn’t mean I don’t recall how sh*tty it was before things turned positive.

I applaud the OWS protesters for making a dent – people asked me about this non-stop at home, even those that didn’t know I used to work on Wall Street, so awareness is very high.  But given the young age of the average protester, I would probably caution against putting all chips in on long-term change.  Affecting political/policy change takes somewhere near forever, there is a danger of losing prime years in the shuffle – need to simultaneously try to make inroads under current systems.  Despite the terrible economy, it has never been easier to try your own thing – f*ck, these days you can start your own gig with little more than a $10/month hosting fee, a good idea and some hard work.  (I’m not a great example of this, but will keep trying.  I did score over $5 last month!))

*also the trademark of everyone else on the internet

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Welcome To Business School

I yearn for simpler days...

As an old bastard/movie connoisseur, I’ve lived through parts of six different decades and it’s amazing to the degree that selecting a movie to watch has become a f*cking chore.  We’ve moved from “should we go see a moving picture tonight?” to “am I willing to sit in a roomful of assholes for two and a half hours to see this Katherine Heigl piece of sh*t that will almost certainly be the inflight movie the next time i fly Delta?”  It used to be kind of fun to roll to Blockbuster and peruse the New Releases, now it’s a grueling test of endurance to even figure out what mechanism we will use to deliver the image to our eyeballs.

A Decade-By-Decade Examination Of The Movie Selection Process

The ’70s

Things were pretty simple back then: check out the newspaper and see what’s playing…if you don’t like that, see if there’s a movie on any of the three channels you have access to.  Nothing good on?  Tough shit, go have another baby or make a pinewood derby car.

The ’80s

The mass market availability of the VCR in the early ’80s changed the movie selection game substantially.  Now, in addition to the above, one had the ability to go to a video store and check out what movies were available, with a far quicker turnaround than waiting for a broadcast debut.  There was little rush greater than perusing the New Release aisle and seeing an available copy of Howard The Duck, or something else that your mom thought was too stupid to pay $5 for in the theater.  (I remember once incurring some late fees because a squirrel fried itself in a transformer box, killing power to our entire neighboorhood while we had a tape in the VCR.  We didn’t think of just hauling the VCR down to the store – perhaps because it weighed about 75 lbs (the Seventeen household rarely had the most cutting-edge technology).

The VCR introduced us as a society to the unique decision of “would I prefer to see this in the theater, or in the comfort of my own home, at a time of my choosing?”  For fare such as Body Heat, the decision was simple; for Aliens, more complicated.  At the time, no one could envision how much more complex this was about to get.

The ’90s

The ’90s introduced the DVD (which didn’t really complicate the decision-making process as they essentially just replaced VHS tapes – although it was pretty exciting for people with limited storage space under their tv, AV nerds and pron enthusiasts) and more socially-acceptable satellite sizes (ie DirecTV) which brought Pay Per View (PPV) to the forefront.  Now there was an additional kink in the chain, the dreaded movie you wouldn’t rent at the video store, but that you might pay $5 to watch on ppv after a little too much Paul Masson rose- this is how I unfortunately ended up watching that godawful Godzilla reboot.  (Although it was a pretty sweet feeling once you finally got that DirecTV phone line thingee to work correctly, even for those not intimately interested in the 85 adult PPV channels.)

The 2000s (or Oughts or Whatever the Hell They Ended Up Being Called)

The 2000s didn’t really cause too much of a wrinkle, as the big development was probably Netflix (which would really shake things up in the next decade.)  There were certainly additional avenues for PPV, such as the Playstation Network, but it was pretty redundant with the cable PPV offerings so not such a huge deal.  Netflix allowed the annoying Type A people who were pissed that they couldn’t pre-reserve every f*cking movie at the movie rental store, to create a list of movies they wanted and then they’d mail that sh*t right to their Type A houses, complete with envelopes that you know those nerds put in their Daytimer so they’d remember to send back immediately after watching.  This didn’t work so much for lazy people like myself, who were willing to roll the dice at the video store (even after consistently experiencing the shocking absence of the next The Wire DVD from the store shelves at important junctures.)

One personal wrinkle was the “movie I’d watch only if on a plane” when I was traveling quite a bit.  I watched 17 Again in such a situation – something I’m not proud of (it wasn’t even the only option available – business class, homie.  I am ashamed, though.)

The ’10s (No One Calls This Decade Anything To My Knowledge, So Maybe I Can Start A Trend)

It’s a bit of a fib to blame the ’10s for the current glut of selections: I’m sure Netflix streaming was available prior to Jan 1st, 2010.  But for clarity of this article, let’s assume that was the case (as that’s when we started stealing the streaming from SO’s mom’s Netflix account.)  So now, with Netflix Instant (or Amazon Prime, for you Amazon nerds – look to your right, buy something!) you could watch a whole bunch of sh*t immediately, right on your tv or computer screen, for no additonal cash outlay.  Game changer.  Now, when we decide we want to watch a movie, here’s a rough description of the process.

Maybe we should watch a movie?

1. Cool, let’s check out Netflix streaming
2. Not much new on here, what’s in our queue again?
3. I’m not really in the mood for The Long Kiss Goodnight again, maybe we should watch an old tv show instead?
4. Hold on, did you try Channel 1000?  Maybe there’s some new stuff on there we wanted to see?
5. Damn, now Channel 1000 has so much crap on it it’s separated into 3 alphabetical pages
6. This is gonna take forever, what about HBO OnDemand?  That’s free at least
7. I think Boardwalk Empire is too heavy for right now, what about a couple of Curb reruns?
8. Wait, flip down to Showtime OnDemand
9. Does Weeds still suck?  Or is it better now?
10. Is the Playstation still on?  Let’s check out the PS Network, movies are $1 cheaper on there
11. Did you look at Primetime OnDemand?  Have we seen all the Louies?
12. Go back to Netflix, I think that documentary on wolverines is still on there
13. Damn, how many horror films are on here?
14. I’m getting tired, just push any f*cking button on any remote that will cause a moving image on the screen
15. F*ck it, I’m just gonna read this Us Weekly from May 2009 and go to sleep

 

The haircut is not helping

It would seemingly be pretty sweet to be Peter Jackson’s muse, with prominent roles in several well-regarded big-budget productions (oftentimes mutually exclusive adjectives).  But what if one of the strict conditions of receiving these roles is that no one ever see your (possibly hideously ugly) face?  You possess facial muscles that can make a middle-aged housewife nod knowingly with merely a nuanced arching of a computer-simulated eyebrow; does that compensate for the fact that your non-CGI visage has made even veteran crime scene photographers retch up 2-3 recent meals?  If every role required tiny light bulbs to cover your face – not only to capture the movements for the digital manipulation, but to obscure your features such that the crew would not be subject to seeing your face, undiluted?

Such is the plight of Andy Serkis, who’s the computer-generated face of Gollum, King Kong, some apes in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and probably some other stuff.  I know actors are supposed to have pretty thick skin, but isn’t “your fucking face is disgusting” harder to digest than “you need to lose around ten pounds, sweetie”?  Even worse, he’s almost universally lauded for these performances, with some Oscar buzz for Gollum and some more modest awards chatter for ROTPOA.  ”You’re great, we love you, you captured the character perfectly – thank God we were able to edit out all of your physical characteristics.”  I’ve gotta assume AS has a pretty solid net worth, so it’s not all bad for him, but I can imagine that it kind of sucks to be his agent.

This is a distinct improvement

Ten Responses Andy Serkis’ Agent Has Definitely Heard From Casting Directors

1.  ”We are gonna pass, but he’d be perfect if we needed to cast John Merrick’s uglier brother”

2.  ”I’ll get back to you, our cameramen are negotiating for offset cameras  if we cast him, don’t know if our budget can handle it”

3.  ”I think we would be much more interested if we’d figured out how to film with Andy behind the greenscreen”

4.  ”Would he be interested in auditioning for the role of “1980 Saints Fan”, instead?”

5.  ”Has a little too much of a Gracie Belle vibe for this part”

6.  ”When we called Andy in, we had no idea that he’d been recently involved in a chimpanzee attack – did it happen on the Planet of the Apes set?”

7.  ”Andy makes Paul Giammati look like a young Patrick Swayze”

8.  ”Sorry, we learned our lesson with the Ray Park experiment”

9.  ”Call Paramount, they are working on an Unknown Comic biopic”

10.  ”God, no…he’s horrendous”

Later,

Chilly17

Nicole - Feel free to grab a cheeseburger at the poolside bar

The title of this post is a little misleading – I was originally just gonna take a look at the (undoubtedly meaningful and metaphorical) lyrics to the song “Right There.”  Then I watched the video, which led to even more questions.  So now this is more of a “Five Questions for the People Behind “Right There” the Song and “Right There” the Video” deal.

 
The amazing and deep lyrics, in their entirety:

Come here baby eh be my baby

Eh be my baby oh oh oh
Come here baby put your hands on my body
Hands on my body oh oh oh
Right there keep it right there
I love when you put it right there yeah
Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah oh oh oh
Yeah yeah

Me like the way that you hold my body
Me like the way that you touch my body
Me like the way that you kiss my yeah yeah yeah yeah me like it
Me like the way that he put it on me
Me like the way that he push up on me
Me like the way that he goin’ down down down down down
Down down down down down

I aint never gonna let no girl take him from me
Never gonna let no girl steal him from me
Never gonna let no girl get that close now
I tell’em hey hey your’e too close now

CHORUS:
Come here baby eh be my baby
Eh be my baby oh oh oh
Come here baby put your hands on my body
Hands on my body oh oh oh
Right there keep it right there
I love when you put it right there yeah
Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah oh oh oh
Yeah yeah

I like the way that you talk dirty
Don’t wash your mouth out I like it dirty
You like to please yeah I like that yeah yeah yeah yeah me like it
I like the way that you keep me coming
Yeah yeah you so good you had me running
Me like the way that he goin’ down down down down down
Down down down down down

No I ain’t never gonna let no girl take him from me
Never gonna let no girl steal him from me
Never gonna let a girl get that close now
I tell’em hey hey you’re too close now

CHORUS:
Come here baby eh be my baby
Eh be my baby oh oh oh

Come here baby put your hands on my body
Hands on my body oh oh oh
Right there keep it right there
I love it when you put it right there yeah
Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah oh oh oh
Yeah yeah

Do he know how to work it?
he got that got that
Put it on you work it
he got that got that
Do you real good for your lay it down good for you yeah
He got that got that
All my girls if your man put it down let me hear you say yeah
All my ladies if you man put it down let me hear you say yeah
Do he work that? How like you like that?
When he throw the bone attcha do you bite back?
Say yeah all my girls say yeah
If he makes you feel good

CHORUS:
Come here baby eh be my baby
Eh be my baby oh oh oh
Come here baby put your hands on my body
Hands on my body oh oh oh
Right there keep it right there
I love when you put it right there yeah
Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah oh oh oh
Yeah yeah

Come here baby come be my baby
Come be my baby oh oh oh
Come here baby put your hands on my body
Put your hands on my body like yeah
Right there keep it right there
I love when you love me say yeah oh oh oh

CHORUS:
Come here baby eh be my baby
Eh be my baby oh oh oh
Come here baby put your hands on my body
Hands on my body oh oh oh
Right there keep it right there
I love it when you put it right there yeah
Oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah oh oh oh
Yeah yeah

Five Questions for Nicole Scherzinger, James Scheffer, Ester Dean, Frank Romano, Daniel Morris and Anybody Else Creatively Responsible for “Right There” and its Video

1.  For the songwriters - James Scheffer, Ester Dean, Frank Romano and Daniel Morris, according to some random website that is probably pretty inaccurate – what the f*ck is up with the first person pronouns here??  ”Me” when it should be “I” then back to correct usage, then back to “me” – they’re both one syllable, so doesn’t seem like it would trip up any tricky pentameter schemes here.  Is “me” inherently sexier than “I” or something?  Is she supposed to be channeling Cookie Monster or somebody?  I don’t quite get it.

2.  Also for the songwriters –  This shit took four of you to write?

3.  For everybody involved, could you please make the sex metaphors a little more straightforward? These are pretty lacking – on a scale of one to Ready For The World - these fall a Jheri-curl or two short of the mark.  That “put it on me, push up on me” business has me pondering whether the guy is putting on her bra instead of the more standard removing her clothes during “put it right there” type situations.  Then she’s celebrating when her man “puts it down” – which sounds more like a remix of every 1980s female comic’s bit about their man’s toilet seat habits than a sultry call to get busy (or put on clothes, who knows what’s really going on here).

Color them unimpressed - lyrics like "I'm so deep inside of you girl" required little examination

4.  Is this really how you protect your territory?  I appreciate that some time was taken to establish that Nicole is pretty protective of her man – although it’s somewhat indeterminate as to whether it’s sexual prowess or just that he religiously puts down the toilet seat; the first twenty lines of lyrics establish this fondness and suggest that she’ll be fiercely protective of her territory.  No telling what she’s f*cking likely to do if some girl threatens to “steal him from me, take him from me”?  She’s probably gonna shoot a bitch, right?  Pull some hair at a minimum?  How about politely telling her “you’re too close now.”  That’s not gangsta, that’s after-school speciala.

5.  Was 50 Cent cast in the video only because they realized they probably needed to put a dude in it somewhere?  The video is hilarious; 50 Cent has less chemistry with Scherzinger than my coffee table does with the stack of Chipotle napkins that I put down, down, down on it.  And for all the talk about how her man is touching her, the video is completely devoid of that – at one point, 50 Cent did get pretty near her, but I believe her parka prevented actual contact.  For a song that is ostensibly about a guy touching a girl, the video medium show’s zero physical contact – mostly it’s just girls in some weird looking combination of swim/outerwear dancing around with bizarre ponytails and shit.  Makes me strangely nostalgic for I miss the Pussycat Dolls (which is kind of weird, because everytime I see their founder on SYTCD it causes me to have PTSD-type symptoms for a couple days).

Later,

Chilly17

P.S.  To those people clicking on google ads, you are good people.  This site will be self-sustaining within about 17 years, couldn’t do it without you.   Feel free to vote in the candy bar poll, too – I’m gonna see how the empirical evidence stacks up against my undoubtedly correct opinions.  Also, I’m trying to make sure my sidebar is jam-packed with shit.

I just realized yesterday that I know an architect.  I wish I didn’t.  Not that I hate architects or anything – although the dick who designed our apartment to interfere with any signal that the T-Mob throws out is certainly not a favorite – but I always kind of wore it as a badge of honor not knowing one.  (Like my old banking buddy that had never been to Hoboken and swore to keep it that way; everybody has to have their thing.)  Why did I like not knowing an architect?  Because architect is one of the “Big Four” tv (and movie) careers, that is massively overrepresented onscreen compared to the people you actually know in real life.  Mike Brady, Ted Mosby, the love interest on basically every f*cking female-led sitcom ever…hell, even George Costanza aspired to pretend to be an architect, and he was getting all kinds of ass.  Not knowing a single architect – and knowing far less cops and doctors than you’d guess from tv – served as a constant reminder that television – even reality television – rarely resembled the real world.

Let’s look at the situation analytically and graphically, in the form of some sweet pie charts.  The graph below not only illustrates the limited professional worldview of the typical Hollywood writer, but also the stellar Excel skills that can be gleaned from a $100k MBA and seven years working in finance.

Source: Empirical observations of somebody who watches a shitload of television

This next pastry-shaped masterwork depicts life as we all know it (and before you start bitching about how you know 300 lawyers, they are included in the big categories.  Every lawyer eventually ends up at a company or, most likely, in finance where they can make more dough in less hours while acting like bigger jerks.)

Source: Office of Statistics I Made Up But That Look Pretty Plausible white paper, January 2011.

Why are there no bankers on tv?  Every corporate raider on tv is inaccurately described as an “investment banker” (you will quickly recognize these characters, they typically also rape a puppy or something at some point during the program, as that is more subtle than just wearing a black mask and carrying a sack of money with a big $$$ on it.)  I guess one reason all the efforts to bring the vibrant world of finance to the small screen have failed is because the crises don’t resonate as compared to a patient in cardiac arrest or a dramatic closing statement; “I NEED THESE COMPS UPDATED ASAP!” doesn’t carry the same emotional weight.  Nor does “WHY IS THIS DATA TABLE LEGEND IN TIMES NEW ROMAN?????!!!!!????”  Given that probably less than 3% of bankers’ parents could give a reasonable facsimile of their banker kids’ job description, the relative professional anonymity probably makes sense.

But still, architects?  Come on tv writers, let’s cool it with all the big drafting tables.  And, L-Money, I’m considering defriending you so I can go back to the way it was.

Later, Chilly17

(Editor’s Note: I’m gonna quit writing on here about how I’m rededicating myself to this site, blah, blah, blah…because everytime I do, my dad has a stroke.  So I will just add that I hope to be somewhat more focused in the future.  This site took down almost $2 in straight cash last month, homie, and I think there’s more where that came from (especially when motherf*ckers click on ads and isht.)

Somewhat interesting excerpt in Vanity Fair of the new book by Stieg Larsson’s “widow.”  Actually, it wasn’t all that illuminating, but I feel bad for her for basically getting shut out of the posthumous windfall from the (vastly overrated) Millennium trilogy.  I saw a trailer for this the other day before X-Men:First Class (an excellent movie, by the way, Fassbender is awesome) and I had no idea it was even for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Apparently their marketing strategy is to keep Lizbeth’s character under wraps a la the shark in Jaws (except for the nipple-baring poster.  So shocking!  Whatever.)  As previously mentioned, there’s really no reason to remake this – the Swedish versions were pretty great.  Although I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t think someone from a privileged background like Rooney Mara would even be able to pull off the look.  She has.  (I also saw The Tree of Life – I’m still not sure what the fuck that was all about.  I think I can only progressive through a very linear narrative unless the director is Christopher Nolan.  Check it out, though – X-Men is slightly fresher on Rottentomatoes than TOL.  Suck it, Malick.)

Anyway, one interesting revelation in the VF article was that Larsson actually planned for the Millennium trilogy to be a decalogy, ten books.  (I doubt that’s really what you call a series of ten books, but I’m also not gonna look it up.  I don’t get paid for research.)  As a value-added service, I will fill you in on the other titles of the books in the planned tenology.

The Titles of All the Dragon Tattoo Books

1.  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

2.  The Girl Who Played With Fire

3.  The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

4.  The Girl Who Purchased A Sensible Handbag

5.  The Middle-Aged Lady Who Wound Her Biological Clock

6.  The Woman Whose Menopause Seemed Quite Similar to Playing With Fire

7.  The Woman Who Had Difficulty Ordering at Chipotle

8.  The Woman Who Needed to Seriously Reconsider Her Hairstyle

9.  The Single Old Woman Who Realized The Sad Irony of Having a Photographic Memory

10.  The Old Woman With The Saggin Tattoos

Later,

Chill17

(There may be even more stuff this week, I am feeling somewhat motivated.  Stay tuned.  Or not – it’s summer.)

1.  Determine the latest showtime that will work for the group of people planning to attend – after  midnight is best.

2.  Arrive at neighborhood bar – on trivia night, if possible – at least five hours prior to showtime.

3.  Drink a couple of Stellas.

4.  Order some deep-fried food – I’d recommend the boneless wings and mo’ sticks.

5.  Do a quick calorie count – if you have consumed over 2,000 calories since entering the bar, switch to vodka/sodas.

6.  Determine that counting calories (and sleeping) is foolish and switch to Red Bull and vodkas.

7.  Stay on Step 6. for several hours.

8.  Have your SO stop at the liquor store to pick up some contraband to smuggle into the movie (kudos if SO brings TWO bottles – one for the theater and one replace the Svedka bottle at  home that has become a kick-ass water bottle.)

Is Doug always missing the action part of the joke?

9.  (Optional) Win a free Red Bull and vodka for knowing some shit about architecture.

10.  Once you feel that you are completely anesthetized for the painful-if-sober moviegoing experience, head for the theater.

11.  Split your group into separate factions: one ticket-purchaser, one food-procurer, one line-stander.

12.  Ask everyone in line “Is this the line for Kung Fu Panda 2?  I hear that movie’s awesome” in a double-edged attempt to a) be funny, and b) improve your return on DWA options from -175% to -165%.

13.  Once inside, order large Diet Sprites (if available) with lots of ice.  (Movie theater ice melts immediately upon contact with outside booze.  One time when I was a kid we smuggled in some 100 proof vodka that was like $0.35/bottle and all the ice disappeared instantaneously.  When I asked the girl to add some ice she dumped everything out and said she’d just give me a refill instead.  I think that movie theater still reeks of Prospov 100 proof.)

14.  Carefully choose seats that will allow you to pour the drinks discretely while maximizing your distance from people who you will – even in your drunken state – perceive as assholes during the movie.

15.  Dominate up to 20 Chicken Mcnuggets before the previews start.

16.  Enjoy the show!  (I thought it was pretty good despite the terrible reviews, but we were in pretty optimized spirits by the time the movie got going.  I don’t remember many specifics other than it was structured exactly like the original, and accessible even to someone who’d consumed way too much Red Bull and way too much vodka.  One question, though: WHERE WAS HEATHER GRAHAM!!!!)

I'm guessing it wasn't her appearance at the London premier that kept her out of the sequel?

17.  (Optional) Grab some pizza so that you can continue enjoying some vodka (with diet ginger ale) while watching NewsRadio on Netflix until it’s light outside.

Happy Memorial Day,

Chilly17

Tell me that little bastard isn't checking his phone for important Facebook updates

Is it just me, or did we as a people forget the lessons learned about empowering computers in films like The Matrix, The Terminator and 2001: A Space Odyssey?  (I haven’t seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, so if HAL 9000 doesn’t get his smarts from stupid humans enabling him, disregard.  I respect Kubrick movies in concept but have only seen Full Metal Jacket - true story.)  ”Cloud computing” has been all the rage lately (except occasionally right after an EQIX or FFIV earnings miss); cloud computing is apparently a euphemism for “letting some magical server farms in the sky keep track of your software/data/private home videos.”  So instead of having to have your iPod with you, one could theoretically just log into his amazon/google/whatever account and have access to all his files.  Instead of logging into a VPN, salespeople can access their software via the “cloud,” because most salespeople are busy working in the “field” and not padding their expense accounts with unnecessary (but delicious) Marie Calendar cheesecakes.  (Editor’s Note: I cannot be certain this last sentence is factually correct, except that bit about salespeople not padding their expense accounts – that is definitely incorrect.)  Isn’t overly empowering our machines (that somehow are pissed off at their treatment even before they become sentient), exactly how the evil computer networks get their start in basically every sci fi movie?

I’m actually pretty concerned that it’s too late to reverse this technological trend.  Have you walked down a fucking city street lately?  As I’ve noted before, the majority of the people in NYC are not capable of walking down the street without levying a social tax on those of us who aren’t complete fucking assholes.  These days it’s almost impossible to make it more than 1/13th of a block without running into some dickhead (or dickheadess, women are just as bad or worse) who is glued to his phone and can’t be bothered to occasionally look in the direction where he/she is headed.  I think the Unabomber had at least one thing right in his manifesto – technology is not for everyone.  (Full disclosure: I stole that line from an episode of NewsRadio, but mostly so I could say I stole something from Joe Rogan.  Seems like a good conversation piece.)  The other day I almost had to tackle a lady who was walking directly in the path of a taxi going through a pretty routine green light.  She was gracious enough to give me a disgusted look, insisting that “she had it.”  I should probably have just let her die while reading Aunt Fran’s updated status – I’m sure there was something crucial going on.  (Honestly, I probably wasn’t as concerned about her getting obliterated as I was about having to deal with the graphic imagery for the rest of my life.  I once saw a traffic-law-abiding dude on a motorcycle get creamed by a car whose driver had fallen asleep – mangled limbs and Reservoir Dogs-levels of blood are not exactly my thing.)  Making things worse, there are tons of blind people in my neighborhood who bravely – and routinely – navigate the grates, holes and dogshit of Chelsea and would certainly treasure even five minutes of eyesight per day for their torturous commutes.

The irony of the eyesight situation is probably lost on the self-absorbed assholes of the world.  This cloud computing shit isn’t gonna make things better either, seems likely to just make the need for instant gratification even instanter.  I think the ability to have everything you need at your fingertips is basically making life worse – no one appreciates anything.  I remember back in my day, the magazine rack at Skaggs Alpha Beta was a pretty sweet source of information, but it took a little bit of effort to get there, and after about five hours you had read all the Soccer Digests, Sporting Newses, Electronic Gameses and NFL previews they had onhand.  Then you would have to circle back in a couple weeks to see what new shit they had.  (Editor’s Note:  Soccer was pretty big when I was growing up.  Billy Caskey, Tulsa Roughnecks represent!  Although, fuck you for winning the Soccer Bowl the year after I moved to the ‘sas.)

Even after ESPN was born, you still had to catch a late Sportscenter back in the day to keep up completely up to the minute.  I remember back in the fall of 1988 – after I’d failed out of college and was back working at Taco Bell – I worked a long closing shift when the 49ers played the “Cardiac” Cardinals and nobody knew who won and I’d missed all the late Sportcenters.  I did what any self-respecting 19-year-old with no money and no prospects would do – I went to Waffle House and waited for the newspaper guy to fill the racks at the gas station next door at around 4:45 AM.  Fucking Neil Lomax.  (Cardinals won 24-23 after trailing 23-0; who cares though, Niners won the fucking Super Bowl that year.)  Nowadays only losers hang around gas stations waiting for sports scores.

Despite my skepticism about the likelihood of eventual machine domination, I have had a long relationship with one of the more prominent cloud server companies, which even has a somewhat sinister name: F5 Networks.  What the fuck are the five Fs?  Faceless Farms Fucking Folks Forever?  Futuristic Factories Frightening Fainthearted Fatasses?  Who knows?  The company won’t even reveal what it stands for.  Even more sinister, FFIV has been prominently involved in blowing up my trading accounts on two separate occasions, the dotcom meltdown of spring 2000 and again in early 2002 as I squandered much of my investment banking summer bonus (you meant well, though, TARP I!).  Never much for learning from my mistakes, I’m again long FFIV in a couple accounts with less disastrous (though still horrendous) results.  (Our investment fund is off to a bit of a rocky start – thanks fucking Google, for having earnings the day before options expiration.  Yet another example of how the cloud will ultimately fuck you.)  But fuck it, I’m long and strong FFIV since we all know the robots will win eventually; I’m gonna accelerate the process by taping my phone to my right eye – it will serve as a (quasi-) 4G eyepatch and also obscure the most persistent fucking under-your-eye rash in the world.

These pricks don't look qualified to walk down the street either

Later,

Chilly17

(You see that Like This button?  Go ahead and Like This while crossing the street without looking, for irony’s sake.  Cool.  I don’t really know what it does, but someone said for every Like you get paid $2 by AT&T – not sure if that’s true.)

Since I haven’t actually written any new shit yet, I instead offer you this honey badger video.  (If you don’t know what a honey badger is, let me assure you it isn’t just a sweeter version of an everyday badger.  A more accurate name would be Lion-Testicle-Ripping Badger.)

[youtube]4r7wHMg5Yjg[/youtube]

Later,

Chilly17

Note:  My reborn dedication to this site will soon dazzle and amaze you.

I can tell when a new episode of Friday Night Lights has aired by the number of Google searches for “ugly baby fnl” – which leads those curious souls to my first award-winning “Separated at Birth” piece.  (If you aren’t capitalizing on the casting of unattractive babies, you aren’t using the internet right).  Anyway, as with Gracie Belle, this is not intended as a condemnation of a person’s attractiveness, more the revelation of a coincidental resemblance.  Plus, Rulon Gardner is a national treasure.  (If you don’t know the backstory on Gardner, he basically beat the real-life equivalent of Ivan Drago in Greco-Roman wrestling in the 2000 Olympics.  The Drago dude weighed in at a ripped 290 pounds, had never lost before and went like ten years without giving up a point – I don’t know what that means, but it sounds impressive.  (Embedded parentheses alert: remind me to tell you my plebe year wrestling story – if you break your wrist playing a pickup football game, miss every wrestling class, then have to face one of your buddies – with previous wrestling experience – for your grade, it might not end up well.  Wrestling exams are notoriously tough to cram for.)  Anyway, Gardner was a humongous longshot and beat this fucking giant out of the blue, thus American Hero.  He also survived a few plane and boat crashes and shit.)

Alexander Karalin, not currently appearing on The Biggest Loser

Joe Posanski did a niece piece on Gardner recently, if you want to refresh your memory with more journalistic stuff (and Posnanski is always tremendous).  Anyway, Rulon got fat and is on the latest season of The Biggest Loser – I’m a few weeks behind so I hope he hasn’t already been booted off, that would make this even staler than usual – and has been a pretty cool guy and worked hard.  But despite the pounds melting off, he still looks exactly like Shrek – just a slightly smaller version with every pound that comes off.  No worries, Rulon – you’re already a fucking national treasure, an Olympic gold medalist, a conqueror of giants and, seemingly, a pretty solid dude.  If a strong resemblance to Shrek is the only real negative in your life ledger, you are doing quite well.

I’m headed to the southwest to sample the food and learn how to milk a goat (in case of an apocolyptic event, everyone should know how to milk a goat.)  I’m hoping the food leans 99.99999999% toward the “Mex” and 0.0000000001% toward the “Tex,” as I don’t have a ton of experience with New Mexico fare.  Wish me luck – and for those wondering, no, Gracie Belle has not started her ascension to attractiveness in Season Five of FNL.

Later,

Chilly17