This is why I have three browsers

I was thinking of Neil LaBute the other day, and then last night I saw a poster for Reasons to be Pretty, his new play. I was like, SCORE! The poster had the following URL on it: http://www.doesthisplaymakemelookfat.com. I went to the web site today using Firefox, which I recently made my default browser. The site opened, but I saw nothing. I tried it in Safari, and behold, the nothingness became stuff. So now I know more about the play, which is something (I guess).

Then I wanted to try out Safari 4 beta, to see whether it can live up to the claims made by Apple. The download page on the Apple web site didn’t work for me in Firefox (0 for 2 today) or Safari (1 for 2), but it did work in Opera 10 alpha, which I think is odd. I just finished the install and am about to restart, and once I’ve messed around with it for a bit, I’ll post my impressions. I guess, actually, that I should go get Firefox 3.1 beta 2 while I’m at it.

I’ll be in my bunk

This web site that sells Ex-Masturbator shirts has been around for a while, but the MetaFilter thread on it is hilarious and kind of makes the ridiculousness fun all over again.

Boo…hiss!

I love love love being a grownup, but hands down, filing taxes must be the worst thing about being an adult. I’d love to pay somebody to do this for me, but I don’t have any complicated investments or anything like that to justify the cost or use of somebody else’s time.

Things that do not surprise me

I haven’t lived in Lynchburg, VA for six years (man, the years have flown by!), but I haven’t forgotten what it was like to live there, either. Every now and then I catch up with what’s going on there by visiting the web site of the News and Advance, the local newspaper. I was saddened, but in no way surprised to see this article about Liberty University’s position on evolution (hint: not favorable towards). I know a lot of people who I respect and think the world of who do not believe in evolution either (we agree to disagree), but I think that a whole institute of learning should probably know better than to endorse an untestable, untried, unprovable theory based on the an account written when people still believed that offering sacrifices of animals, vegetables, and PEOPLE could appease the gods.
My kind of alma mater, Randolph College, comes out looking infinitely more reasonable here.

Duh

Dear Burn Notice,

You cannot have a character played by Lucy Lawless and expect the audience to believe that she is some sweet mother who is suffering because her son was kidnapped. Lucy Lawless is visual shorthand for AWESOME ASSKICKING WOMAN. How is it possible that the casting people didn’t know this??? I was looking for the gun pretty much from her first scene.

Thank you, though, for putting Lucy Lawless and Bruce Campbell back together again. The fake emotional stuff between Evelyn and Michael made me, for the first time, understand exactly how this show could be on the USA Network, but the healthy dose of scary scary hitwoman made me remember why I love it so.

Your fan,
Nicole

She who hesitates…

I knew knew knew that I wanted to go to Jason Mraz’s Birmingham, UK concert this coming April. I already have a ticket to his Dublin show, but I thought that I might as well see him a couple of times while I’m in the UK and Ireland. I’d even gone so far as to amend my hostel reservation in Dublin to allow me a stop over in Birmingham. So why didn’t I just buy my ticket??? I mean, I bought my Dublin ticket a couple of weeks before I got the plane tickets, so what possible excuse could I have? Today I tried to purchase a ticket, and the concert appears to be sold out. Bother! Now I’m left hoping that 1) new tickets will become available through Livemaster (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days), or 2) I can find a reseller whose prices do not make me feel scalped.

Even if I’m not able to get a ticket, I think I’m still going to head to Birmingham. I read a lot of good things about it online that make me think it will be worth visiting, and that will be something, right? Plus, there is a chance that somebody might be selling reasonably priced tickets outside of the show, although I need to see what the law in the UK says about buying/selling in that situation. Wouldn’t want to run afoul of the law on top of everything else!

There is not enough alcohol in the world

A friend of mine wants to go see He’s Just Not That into You. He really really wants to see that movie. He has asked more than once, and begging was involved. I said no every time though, because I suspect, in a 2009 that has brought viewings of The Unborn, My Bloody Valentine 3D, and The Uninvited, that He’s Just Not That into You could very well be the worst of the bunch. I have to be honest that his intense, totally unironic desire to see this movie makes me think poorly of his tastes in films (this is, after all, the same guy who got me to see Hot Rod). As if I needed further reason not to see He’s Just Not That into You, I found a hilarious post over at Que Sera Sera about seeing it. I appreciate that Sarah was able to make a drinking game out of the movie, but I think I’d probably put myself in an alcoholic coma if I tried this.

So apt

I don’t really talk too much about what what went on in my love life last year, but sometimes I allude to my single state and how I got there. I’m not intentionally trying to be cryptic, it’s just not much of a story: boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy is no longer sure if he loves girl, girl doesn’t stick around to see which way will be up when the dust settles. Even though I’m okay now with being on my own, and even feel sane enough to date again, sometimes I will hear a song that speaks so much to what I was feeling when my world fell apart.

This time, I was listening to Toad the Wet Sprocket’s 1994 release Dulcinea. I love Toad, but I’m also listening to the cds of theirs that I don’t frequently play, in anticipation of seeing them in concert later this month (squee!!). So this song is, appropriately, entitled “Stupid,” and here is the chorus:

And it’s frightening
Oh, I didn’t expect that from you
It’s blinding
Serious are you seriously
I am feeling really stupid now

I would listen to Glenn Phillips read the freaking phone book if they’d sell tickets to such an event, but these words and the emotion in his voice pretty much summed up my July.

What he said

I went to see Push last night, and it was just as terrible as the previews made it seem. You may wonder why, going in to this film suspecting that it stunk to high heaven, I would even bother. The short answer is friendship, and the long answer is, “Because I absolutely refused to see He’s Just Not That into You or Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” My friend R has truly horrific tastes in movies, and Push is where I drew the line. Please remind me next time to draw it a little lower.

Here’s what one review of this film said:
“I thought Hayden Christensen in last year’s Jumper would be as bland a mutant as the screen would ever give us, but that was before I saw Chris Evans in Push.”

That probably wasn’t the point

So I was reading Doug Glanville’s latest column for the New York Times today. He was discussing the revelation that Alex Rodriguez, baseball god, Madonna-lover, and all around hot stuff had admitted that recent allegations that he’d taken steroids were true. And holy crap, the best player in baseball admitted that he’d taken performance-enhancing drugs. True, he wasn’t the one who broke the story; ESPN did. But Rodriguez confirmed quite quickly, which seems admirable when compared with the Clemenses and McGwires of the world. So I thought that Glanville’s article was interesting and well-written, and it’s a shame that the thing that really caught my attention was this: there is such a thing as a curveball machine.

Amazing! I’d love to have one. What will they think of next?