because the roommate and I are weird

Halfway through the baseball game we started wondering who on the Red Sox had sold their souls. And then I started quoting Party of the First Part (Bauhaus) and then they won right at midnight, and after declaring that that was creepy for a while, Megan and I started giggling about the Devil asking Johnny Damon to come along now, because really....

Anyway, I'm a Yankee fan, but dude, good for the Red Sox. It was great baseball and they deserve it, and I'll be cheering for them in the Series.

random pieces

The reason I love baseball is it's got science, superstition and romance as far as the narrative goes, and that's pretty cool.

I've got an audition today for one of those iPod dancing commercials. We also have a meeting at work on more random office logistics stuff, which always is the sort of thing to cause me dull background anxiety, but there may be a paycheck or some such involved as well.

I'm probably the only American following this story because of my job, but is anyone else following the incredibly fucked up tale of Margaret Thatcher's son and the African coup which has also managed to brush up along side the incredibly fucked up story of Riggs Bank, oil companies and dictators the world over? Craaaazy stuff.

John Stewart yelling at Tucker Carlson is great not because Tucker Carlson deserved it (he did) or because John Stewart alluded to the puppets on Crank Yankers, but because it's interesting to watch Stewart very cogently slip into a role where he gets to say, "No, I'm not a "real" journalist by today's standards, but I have something to say, and it's not so much that I'm right, but that it's irrefutable." It's really impressive and interesting to watch someone speak with a voice of personal certainty that isn't a scary neo-con deriding the rest of us for living in the "reality-based world" (a phrase which deeply amuses me, since my own relationship with reality is fairly arguable, and I still think these people are cracked out of their minds).

Also, West Wing last night? Is this whole season going to be about the absolutely horrid dissolution of Jed and Leo's friendship? Because I've had that gut feeling since the end of last season ("it should have been you") and the season premiere seemed to confirm my instinct. Is Leo going to resign and go work on someone else's campaign? Worse, is Jed going to ask for his resignation? Why is he screaming in the woods in those previews for the next episode? I have a _really_ bad feeling about this.

Finally -- dude, what is up with my friends list? The amount of bad crap going on is astounding. *pets the lot of you*

nothing in particular

Through some miracle, my voter registration actually got in on time, and I will be able to vote in this election. They sent me two duplicate notices to inform me of such (but I checked, and they have a single registration number so all is well).

I am amusing myself by looking at uniform coats on some British museum site thingy.

I've just done another BPAL order -- La Petit Mort (again, I am not responsible for their bad French) and Dana O'Shee.

I am getting all the copious funds I am owed from my job on Monday. Meaning I can pick up the new and desperately needed order of headshots tomorrow.

I am investigating where I'm going to get my Regency corset from (because I'm sorry, I am a decent sewer, but there is no way I am that good or even wish to be that good).

That's really all. Useful things and responses to emails later.

Equilibrium

I finally watched Equilibrium.

I remember when it came out and wanting to see it despite the awful reviews, but I never got there. Then fandom erupted in squeeing over it for about five minutes, and I still couldn't get motived. Then all this time later I got it from Netflix but was too busy with work, auditions and costuming to get to it, and now finally.

It's... so strange, in that the dialogue is awful, the plot holes immense, the naming of things terrible enough to be nearly unacceptable (fortunately for this film, Chronicles of Riddick happened, and you just can't beat "Necromonger"), the issue and message over simplified, everything that's not sledgehammer obvious is nearly too subtle to be clear, etc etc etc.

And yet, it's one of the most visually intelligent films I've ever seen (and beautiful, and references other films in ways that are something other than a director going wink-wink nudge-nudge -- I mean this is a world where people burn films, and are shown doing it, and remnants, reminders of films presumeably destroyed in this world are echoed trhough the film that tells this story -- it's all meta and neat), and the ending is profoundly, weirdly, surprisingly dark -- obvious sure, but it's the place you always want movies like this to go and then they lose their nerve. This doesn't.

I watched the first 90% of the film thinking this, instead of The Vampire Lestat, could have saved my life when I was twelve, had the timing been different, and the last 10% of the film realizing it would have made me an appallingly cold child (something that would have probably been useful for a few years in there).

It's not a good film, and in all ways easy to describe it is, in fact, pretty damn stupid. But the attempt that it is, is worth seeing, especially if you have any interest in toltalitarianism as portrayed in film, as this manages to slide right through everything from Metropolis to Leni Riefenstahl to the vastly inadequate but still echoing film version of 1984.

Really interesting if you allow yourself to accept it merely as a sketch of a film orchestrated as if it were merely the same nightmare its creator had been having since the age of nine.

For a full day of flawed science fiction, following it with 28 Days Later and then Gattaca would work nicely. That said, 28 Days Later scares the crap out of me, and Gattaca makes me cry and this... just reminds me of my smile, and that my friends, is a little creepy.