February 2008 Archives

There was a game some friends of mine in college invented called Sandmasters.  It involved cards and dice somehow.  If I'm being a little vague on the details, its because the game was retarded.  I gather that it was a good game to play while intoxicated, because it's not like the game made any sense when sober. The rules were incredibly convoluted, and it also happened to be exactly zero fun to play.  Of course, that wasn't the point.  The point was that, if you invented a game, you could invent the terminology, and some crazy terminology and lingo evolved around Sandmasters.  If only they knew that the perfect game for them already existed: contract bridge. 

So I give to you the Bridge Term of the Week: actual terms used to describe various situations in bridge.

Coffeehousing (slang) - making gratuitous statements, often (and highly improperly) with the intention of misleading or confusing the opponents.

Origin: In Europe, it was common to play bridge in coffeehouses and cafes.  Since these games were very informal, with few guidelines on in-game ethics, chatter was very common during bidding.  This table-talk was often used as a ruse to confuse opponents or illicitly communicate with teammates. 

Coffeehousing also refers to non-verbal communication used to confuse an opponent, such as stalling before playing a card to imply a choice was more difficult than it actually was (i.e. you may have an ace or king to play that you chose not to).  Bitch, quit coffeehousin.'

I really like advice columns.  Of course, its fun to give people advice and tell them what to do; but even more fun is watching people flail out into the internet wilderness, casting about for someone guide them through the tiniest little problems that pop up in their lives.   Unfortunately, nobody has flopped into my net, looking for my advice - but that's not going to stop me!  I'm just going to get into somebody else's business (bizness?).

This week: I am going to take the questions that were answered by Miss Manners for her February 14th column and answer them my own damn self.  Look for me to get into the business (bizness?) of other advice columnists in the future.


Dear Miss Manners OC:

The prevailing custom in elementary school these days seems to be that a child must -- must -- bring a Valentine's Day card for each and every other student in her classroom (plus the teacher).

This seems to me to be a debasement of the whole purpose of a valentine, which is to show how much you admire someone else. Granted, there are hurt feelings when a valentine is not received as expected, especially if one was delivered, but is a valueless mass delivery any improvement on that?

I am considering boycotting the entire ceremony for my little girls (both in kindergarten this year) in the hopes of getting teachers and other parents to consider just what has become of this holiday. Any suggestions?

Dear Debbie Downer,

Yes, I do have a suggestion.  Stop being a cheap bitch and buy the goddamn Valentine's.  Or, how about this: instead of Valentine's, you can handwrite and make 30 copies of this note for your child to hand out -

"Dear elementary school child,

Thank you for the Valentine you have given my daughter, but I am not allowing them to give out Valentine's unless they truly love and admire you.  You see, giving a card to everyone diminishes the value of cards given to truly special people.  I hope you understand, and that this teaches you the TRUE meaning of Valentine's Day. Also, I'm cheap and a controlling bitch.  Thanks."

**

Dear Miss Manners OC:

I am a 20-year-old college student who has been lucky enough to find a wonderful man. We will be married next summer, but my mother has already started on the guest list.

Because she and my father are graciously paying for the wedding, I don't mind that the majority of the list are friends of hers. I have objected to her wanting to invite some church friends that both my fiance and I have never even met and don't have much desire to meet, but she insists that it would be rude to leave them out.

All I can think about is how awkward the receiving line will be when my fiance and I will both be saying nice to meet you. Would you please help us?

Dear Ungrateful Offspring,

If your mother and father are being gracious enough to foot the bill for what I imagine must be a very expensive wedding for a princess such as yourself, you can be gracious enough to smile, politely greet a few guests, and get on with the business of making your poor husband miserable with your unreasonable demands for the rest of your lives. Or at least until the divorce. 

**

Dear Miss Manners OC:

A good friend, age 40, recently lost her brother, age 38, in a tragic and violent crime. Her brother lived in a different state, and most of our group had never met him.

Another friend has suggested that in lieu of sending flowers to the funeral, our group of friends should send money to our friend and her husband, ostensibly for their travel expenses, lost wages, etc. I have some misgivings about the propriety of this. Please advise.

Of course you have misgivings.  Your friend is an idiot.  "Hey, heard your brother died, here's $50." What?  Send flowers and condolences. 

Welcome back to Answer the Suze.  This time, the Suze wasn't able to limit herself to just one question - no surprise there - so lets knock out some quick ones.

How is sherbet different from sorbet?

Actually, the Suze, there is no difference.  Sorbet is just French for sherbet, and the words can be used interchangeably.  However, instead of sorbet, I propose that we start calling it "freedom ice cream".

How did Magic Johnson get the AIDS?

There are 3 major ways to get AIDS (well, 4, if you think it can be transmitted through sweat and tears like Senator Dr. Bill Frist, R-Tennessee).

- Sharing needles with someone who has AIDS
- Receiving a tainted blood transfusion (also known as the Ashe Method)
- Sexual intercourse with an AIDS infected partner

Magic Johnson got it the last way, although its up to you whether or not you believe his story of a single extra-marital discretion with another woman.  Sounds pretty unlikely.  Pretty, pretty, pretty unlikely.

Why is it named the Tappan Zee Bridge? That's a stupid name.

Well, the Suze, I'm sorry to say, but that's because you are a racist.  The name Tappan Zee is Dutch for, uh, Tappan Sea.  The Tappans were a Native American sub-tribe of the Delaware/Lenni Lenape.  At least they were, until they were wiped out, probably by other people who also thought they had a stupid name.

And for the record, its full name is the Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge.   You can certainly see why they named a huge bridge after him - he was a highly influential governor whose tenure spread from 1973 all the way to...1974. Huh.

Q: What does a female traveling musician have every month?

The big winner of the night? We answer that question in rebus form:

I love going back to the fraternity house and catching up with all the grads there.  No, not because I really like any of them.  Instead, they give me material for my content-starved website.  Take, for example, the Bouv.

What? Yes, I don't actually give people real nicknames, I just shorten their names and put "the" in front of them, like the Bouv and the Suze.  Don't like it?  Go to hell, the Net.

Anyway.  The Bouv tells us some news about the girl formerly known as BouvGirl.  We still call her BouvGirl cause we never learned her name - I'm not even sure the Bouv learned her name.  Turns out BouvGirl just had her 5th abortion.  (Way to dodge that bullet, the Bouv).  This is what happens when you date someone who goes to the local all-girls college - they are too stupid to open a condom or take a pill, they just keep having abortion after abortion.   If you kept getting into car accidents, wouldn't you start being a more careful driver, instead of just buying new cars every time?

Later that night, I was thinking about BouvGirl while in the supermarket, and I passed the greeting cards.  It seemed like there was a void that I needed to fill...


FRONT

Welcome to a new feature here at ObscureBlog.  In List of the Obscure, we chronicle the furthest reaches of pop culture.  In list form.  Because, uh, doesn't everyone like lists? Seriously, how am I supposed to have a website without some sort of list on it? I actually thought websites came with lists pre-installed, but turns out I have to write it myself and everything. 

List of the Obscure: Because some things haven't been put into lists yet (TM).

1. Armageddon and Deep Impact (1998)

Did you ever get the feeling that the movie you are seeing an ad for already came out? Or that Hollywood was creatively bankrupt? Yeah, me too.  Turns out we weren't hallucinating.  And I'm not even talking about the endless string of remakes, or when a genre suddenly becomes popular, like Save the Last Step Up 2 The Yard Dance, or Jerky-Moving Pale-Faced Japanese Girl Horror Theater.  I'm talking about really specific plot points.  Sometimes they don't even try to hide it - they just make the same movie twice! In the same year!  We'll start with 1998's dueling space-object-hurtling-towards-earth movies, Armageddon and Deep Impact.

Well, I guess I'm not giving them enough credit for being different, because, you see, Armageddon is about an asteroid, and Deep Impact is about a comet, and...and...whatever, that's as much defending as I'm about to do.

Ridiculously Identical Plot Point
The comet/asteroid hurtling towards Earth can only be stopped by sending a rag-tag group of astronauts to bury a nuclear bomb under the surface to destroy it.

Box office
Deep Impact  $140.46M
Armageddon  $201.58M

Tomatometer
Deep Impact  44%
Armageddon  41%

Ebert's take
Deep Impact  "... the movie as a whole is pretty routine." (2.5 stars)
Armageddon  " Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer." (1 star)

My take: The real disaster? These movies made a combined $340 million. Winner: Deep Impact

2. A Bug's Life and Antz (1998)

Was there a writer's strike in 1998 that I'm not aware of? Does anyone else have an explanation for why they kept making movies twice that year? 

I actually think that Dreamworks missed a winning formula here.  Why stop at Antz? How about:

Toyz, starring Woody Allen as the voice of neurotic Cabbage Patch Kid;
Monzterz, starring Woody Allen as the voice of a neurotic Sasquatch;
Carz, starring Woddy Allen as the voice of a neurotic compact car

Ridiculously Identical Plot Point
Uh, both of them are about bugs? What more do you want?

Box office
A Bug's Life $162.8M
Antz  $90.8M

Tomatometer
A Bug's Life  91%
Antz  97%

Ebert's Take
A Bug's Life  "The story ... is similar in some ways to the autumn's other big animated release, "Antz," but it's aimed at a broader audience and lacks the in-jokes." (3.5 stars)
Antz  "It enters into a microscopic world .. and makes it into a world so vast and threatening that comparisons with ``Star Wars'' are not unjustified." (3.5 stars)

My take: Uh, was somebody comparing Antz to Star Wars? Really, Roger? All I remember is that the Jennifer Lopez ant had a big ass, too.  Push

3. Volcano and Dante's Peak (1997)

If the late '90s are to be remembered for anything other than the dot-com boom and Monica Lewinsky, it should be that every fucking movie got made twice.  At least this time one was a comedy.  What? Yes. Dante's Peak was a comedy.  That scene where grandma has to jump out of the boat into the lake of acid and push everyone ashore? HILARIOUS. I laughed for days.  Or, should I say, I laffed.

Ridiculously Identical Plot Point
Climactic scene where our hero must outrun the eruption to save his family.

Box Office
Volcano  $49.3M
Dante's Peak  $67.1M

Tomatometer
Volcano  42%
Dante's Peak  32%

Ebert's Take
Volcano  "The ads say 'The Coast Is Toast,' but maybe they should say 'The Volcano Is Drano.' This is a surprisingly cheesy disaster epic." (1.5 stars)
Dante's Peak  "'Dante's Peak' is constructed about as skillfully as a disaster movie can be, and there were times when I found it working for me, sort of." (2.5 stars)

My take: I actually saw Volcano in theaters.  I was such a tool in 1997.  Winner: Dante's Peak

4. United 93 and World Trade Center (2006)

For all those future filmmakers wondering "How long do I have to wait to use a world-changing disaster as the inspiration for my movie?"  Paul Greengrass and Oliver Stone have answered your question: 5 years. "But what if it feels to soo..." No. No more questions.  The answer is 5 years.  Next question.

Ridiculously Identical Plot Point
Terrorists hijack airplanes and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.  Been there, done that, invaded Iraq.

Box office
United 93  $31.5M
World Trade Center $70.3M

Tomatometer
United 93  91%
World Trade Center  70%

Ebert's Take
United 93  "This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims." (4 stars)
World Trade Center  "The phrase "less is more" just isn't in Stone's directorial vocabulary." (2.5 stars)

My take:  By all accounts, United 93 was a powerful, apolitical telling of a real American tragedy.  Too bad everyone saw the shlocky Oliver Stone version.  Winner: the terrorists.

5. The Prestige and the Illusionist (2006)

Was there a writer's strike in 2006? Does anyone else have an explana ... oh shit, I already made this joke about 1998, didn't I. This list is really starting to have an effect on me.

The Prestige had magician's brutally maiming each other, crazy twists left and right, and Billy Idol as Nikolai Tesla.  Yes, this awesome movie worked Tesla into the plot.  The Illusionist had, uh, well, it had Jessica Biel in those period costume's that push the girl's boobs really high.  That was cool.

Oh wait, The Prestige had Scarlett Johanssen in period costume with high boobs, too.  Yeah, The Illusionist sucked.  In soft focus.

Ridiculously Identical Plot Point
Like, the whole movie was a magic trick, man! Trippy.

Box office
The Prestige $53.1M
The Illusionist  $39.9M

Tomatometer
The Prestige  75%
The Illusionist  75%

Ebert's Take
The Prestige  "What you will learn in the movie is, I believe, a disappointment -- nothing but a trick about a trick." (3 stars)
The Illusionist " If 'The Illusionist' approaches the realm of art, its spell is heightened by a subtly mesmerizing Philip Glass score and cinematographer Dick Pope's flickering, sepia-tinted visuals..." (3.5 stars)

My take: A tie? WHAT? Unbelievable.  I saw both these movies, and The Prestige was awesome.  How did this happen... Winner: Push The hell with that, its my list, and I'll arbitrarily change the rules if I want.  Winner: The Prestige

In deciding to write this column for my blog, I may have dug myself into a bit of a hole.  Anyone who knows the Suze personally knows that she is a question-asking machine.  Eventually, I may be tempted to abandon this space, leaving only a link to Wikipedia in its place.  So far, though, the Suze has been stepping up to the plate with a couple of questions that are actually sort of interesting, so I'm not quitting yet.

Today the Suze wants to know: "I have this extra theater ticket that I'm not going to use.  Can I stand out in front of the theater and sell it? What? Why is scalping illegal?!"

Let's start with a definition of scalping: to cut or tear the scalp from.  Sorry, wrong one.  Let's keep reading: To resell at a price higher than the established value.  Hmm, so if you stand out in front of the theater, and sell the tickets at face value, is that still legally scalping? And you can sell tickets for higher than face value on some re-selling websites, so what gives? And why am I asking myself questions, isn't that the Suze's job?

The laws on ticket re-sale vary from state to state, and I am not willing to look up all the different ones - not even for you, the Suze - but if you are looking to tell that theater ticket in New Jersey, here are a couple of guidelines for you:

- You cannot sell the ticket for more than 20% of the face value (licensed brokers can go up to 50% above face value, but I know you aren't a licensed broker, the Suze, so don't try and trick me)
- You cannot sell tickets at the venue unless there is an area specifically designated for that.  And I doubt the local community theater has a scalping zone.

So you can't stand outside the theater selling tickets (and honestly, do you think people will be looking to buy tickets for Hamlet at the theater? What is this, Yankee Stadium?) but you can sell them online as long as you keep the premium below 20% - even if the eBay auction price exceeds 120% of the price,  you cannot sell it. 

The last part of your question, the Suze, is a little tougher.  Not because its tough to explain why scalping is illegal, but I feel confident that any reason I provide you will be met with derisive scoffing.  But anyway: why no scalping?  I'll give you three quick reasons:

- Scalpers artificially increase the demand for an event.
- Buying tickets through scalpers instead of the venue exposes buyers to fraud and counterfeit tickets. 
- People coming to the venue looking for tickets can create crowd control problems at the gate of an event.

Here is the real bottom line, and the question you should have been asking: who, exactly, do you think is coming to purchase your scalped theater tickets at 3pm on a Saturday? Honestly, the Suze, I don't know where you come up with these ideas sometimes...

Today is the first installment of Answer the Suze, where I spend a few minutes to answer a completely random question from the ever-inquisitive Suze.

Today the Suze asks: "Why do honey jars have a disclaimer that reads, 'Do not feed honey to infants under one year of age?'"

Thanks for asking, the Suze!  The problem is botulinum endospores, which occur naturally in honey.  While the acidic digestive juices of a more fully developed stomach are capable of destroying the spores, infants have not yet developed this acidity.  Additionally, infants do not yet have sufficient numbers of micro-organisms in their intestines that would also normally destroy the spores.  Thus, the spores are left with a warm, anaerobic environment in which to germinate.

The result of this germination inside the intestines is botulin, a very powerful toxin.  The toxin blocks the release of acetylcholine from nerve endings, which is necessary for proper nerve function.  The result:  respiratory and muscular paralysis.  Approximately 75 infants every year develop botulism, although very few are actually from ingestion of honey.

But be careful, the Suze, because it isn't just honey that can lead to infant botulism: any sweetener given to baby can be the cause.  So just use this simple memory device:

Over one, sweeteners are fun!
Under one, baby will get botulism and die.