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grrgoylI have to apologize in advance to any beagle enthusiasts out there before beginning. They must exist because people keep buying the damn things.
My loathing of the beagle Honus has been well documented in this blog. I had believed my feelings of deepest hatred were specific to just him, but I'm starting to think they include the entire breed.
This weekend I met Miley:
He's a cutie, ain't he? Just a wee little puppy, and who doesn't love puppies?
Well. This shot was taken during one of the rare moments when Miley wasn't uttering his shrieking, demanding, completely out of proportion in volume bark. Unlike Honus, Miley does stop eventually, but I attribute this to the little fella's lack of stamina. It will come in time, I'm sure. He also stops long enough to eat his food, but the minute that last bite is gone he returns immediately to being the most miserable, pathetic, attention-hungry animal in the place. This is why God invented the iPod: To make it possible for people like me to work in conditions like this and keep the urge to STRAN-GU-LATE to a minimum.
Who goes to the pet store (or breeder), hears this monstrous barking, and thinks, "Ooooh, I want to live with that day in and day out"? Crazy beagle enthusiasts, that's who.
To add to his charm, lil Miley has a Giardia infection, probably because he can't resist eating nummy nummy poop. He has to be forcibly dragged from every tasty pile of feces in the yard, particularly his own (freshest is best).
I'm not one for ethnic cleansing, but I think a Final Solution for the beagle population might not be so far out of order. (Addendum: Tery reminds me that girl beagles are actually pretty quiet. Ergo, it must mean that Snoopy is a girl, as (s)he is never depicted barking.)
By contrast, I also had a pooch I remember fondly from my first weekend ever at the kennels:
Mr. Shanahan
Shanahan is very affectionate, playful, attentive, patient, but never, ever barks. Shanahan is an example of a Good Dog.
~*~
Next, a quickie movie review. I got An American Haunting from Netflix, was going to wait a week and watch it with Ryan, but am very glad I did not.
They tried to sell this as an account of the only documented case in US history of a spirit causing the death of a human. That does sound intriguing, right? Wait for it....
Present day. A teen girl is running through the woods, pursued by an invisible attacker. She makes it to the safety of her bedroom, where her mother comes in and chastises her for taking a decrepit doll from the "out-of-bounds" attic. Then the mother sits down to read a decaying old journal wherein is written the story of the movie.
Tennessee, 1814. John Bell (Donald Sutherland) is on trial for perpetrating usury on the local witch, Kate Batts. Even though she wins her case she feels wronged because he isn't made to reimburse her for timber he sold off her land, so she gives witches everywhere the bad reputation of "sore winner" by cursing him and his daughter over it. Kind of makes you long for the days of the Salem trials when witches knew their place.
So John and daughter Betsy are plagued by a malicious spirit that comes only at night, but Betsy much moreso than John. The blankets are stripped from her bed, she is dragged across the floor and suspended from the ceiling by her hair, and slapped repeatedly across the face by an unseen "Entity."
The family (including mother Lucy (Academy™-award winner Sissy Spacek) are at their wits' end, and enlist the help of the handsome schoolteacher Richard. He helps by sitting up playing chess with John and by gaping in astonishment during the attacks. There's also talk of him helping by marrying Betsy, despite the 20-year age difference. Hmmmmm, perhaps my Snarry fixation isn't as twisted as I feared.
Most of the movie is only about the attacks, which are increasingly boring to watch since they take essentially the same form every time. There's an attempt to heighten tension with scenes of the actors trying to ignore the camera as it swoops between them and alternates erratically between black & white and color, demonstrating, I assume, the POV of the Entity. Ooooh, black & white, spooky! The only time this technique is effective is when they try removing Betsy from the house and the Entity speeds through the house and then over the countryside, seeking her out in apparent desperation (it finds her, resulting in a pretty spectacular flipping of a horse-drawn carriage).
Finally John confronts Kate Batts personally, begging her to call off her ghost, offering a gun pointed to his temple to appease her. She however informs him that she has nothing to do with it and the haunting is all of his own making. Huh. After still more attacks we finally learn that John has been sexually abusing Betsy (in a very confusing scene where Lucy witnesses an attack and in the middle of it sees her husband crouched over her daughter's bed). Suddenly we are subjected to a rapid series of flashbacks of previous scenes where apparently innocuous statements made by John take on a whole new significance. I like this trick in other, better movies (like The Usual Suspects and Fight Club) but here it just feels like it's insulting my intelligence. Anyhoo, Lucy poisons him, and THIS is how the spirit caused the death of a human...sort of indirectly, but it sure sounded good on the trailer.
The film ends in book-ended fashion back in the present day, with the mother seeing the girl off to spend the weekend with the separated father, and the doll from the attic warning her to help her....implying of course that her daughter is similarly being abused.
Having nothing better to do, I watched the interview with Sissy Spacek in the bonus features. The interview is conducted by the director himself; fitting, as he comes across as the hugest egomaniac I've ever seen. His first question is "Sissy, how did I get so lucky as to have such a great actress as yourself in my movie?" Her answer was only that it "had a good story." With all due respect to Ms. Spacek, I suspect it had a lot more to do with the slowing trickle of scripts crossing her agent's desk. He next asked her what was "the experience" of working with him as a director. Sheesh.
Another bonus was "internet promos." The funniest of these was a representative of G.H.O.S.T. (Ghost Hunters of Springfield, Tennessee, a deceptively clever name), a backwoods hick who helpfully explained that a ghost was merely a dead person who hasn't moved on to the other side yet, and furthermore that a witch is simply a human who practices witchcraft. This was the best the filmmakers could offer in the way of an "expert" investigator's input. Guess the members of T.A.P.S. couldn't be reached for comment.
Boring. Boring and contrived, and according to those more familiar with the legend of the Bell Witch, another case of shameless Hollywood sensationalism. And hardly the "most terrifying film of the year," another in its list of farfetched claims. 0.5 out of 5
~*~
Last but not least, it looks like some Connecticut folks have more money than brains, I'm ashamed to say: CT couple pays $200 for Colorado snow on eBay. Oh my god. I had no idea our parking lot was such a goldmine. I said this would be the craziest thing I'd hear all year, but my sister reminded me that Paris Hilton is still roaming free somewhere.
My loathing of the beagle Honus has been well documented in this blog. I had believed my feelings of deepest hatred were specific to just him, but I'm starting to think they include the entire breed.
This weekend I met Miley:
He's a cutie, ain't he? Just a wee little puppy, and who doesn't love puppies?
Well. This shot was taken during one of the rare moments when Miley wasn't uttering his shrieking, demanding, completely out of proportion in volume bark. Unlike Honus, Miley does stop eventually, but I attribute this to the little fella's lack of stamina. It will come in time, I'm sure. He also stops long enough to eat his food, but the minute that last bite is gone he returns immediately to being the most miserable, pathetic, attention-hungry animal in the place. This is why God invented the iPod: To make it possible for people like me to work in conditions like this and keep the urge to STRAN-GU-LATE to a minimum.
Who goes to the pet store (or breeder), hears this monstrous barking, and thinks, "Ooooh, I want to live with that day in and day out"? Crazy beagle enthusiasts, that's who.
To add to his charm, lil Miley has a Giardia infection, probably because he can't resist eating nummy nummy poop. He has to be forcibly dragged from every tasty pile of feces in the yard, particularly his own (freshest is best).
I'm not one for ethnic cleansing, but I think a Final Solution for the beagle population might not be so far out of order. (Addendum: Tery reminds me that girl beagles are actually pretty quiet. Ergo, it must mean that Snoopy is a girl, as (s)he is never depicted barking.)
By contrast, I also had a pooch I remember fondly from my first weekend ever at the kennels:
Mr. Shanahan
Shanahan is very affectionate, playful, attentive, patient, but never, ever barks. Shanahan is an example of a Good Dog.
~*~
Next, a quickie movie review. I got An American Haunting from Netflix, was going to wait a week and watch it with Ryan, but am very glad I did not.
They tried to sell this as an account of the only documented case in US history of a spirit causing the death of a human. That does sound intriguing, right? Wait for it....
Present day. A teen girl is running through the woods, pursued by an invisible attacker. She makes it to the safety of her bedroom, where her mother comes in and chastises her for taking a decrepit doll from the "out-of-bounds" attic. Then the mother sits down to read a decaying old journal wherein is written the story of the movie.
Tennessee, 1814. John Bell (Donald Sutherland) is on trial for perpetrating usury on the local witch, Kate Batts. Even though she wins her case she feels wronged because he isn't made to reimburse her for timber he sold off her land, so she gives witches everywhere the bad reputation of "sore winner" by cursing him and his daughter over it. Kind of makes you long for the days of the Salem trials when witches knew their place.
So John and daughter Betsy are plagued by a malicious spirit that comes only at night, but Betsy much moreso than John. The blankets are stripped from her bed, she is dragged across the floor and suspended from the ceiling by her hair, and slapped repeatedly across the face by an unseen "Entity."
The family (including mother Lucy (Academy™-award winner Sissy Spacek) are at their wits' end, and enlist the help of the handsome schoolteacher Richard. He helps by sitting up playing chess with John and by gaping in astonishment during the attacks. There's also talk of him helping by marrying Betsy, despite the 20-year age difference. Hmmmmm, perhaps my Snarry fixation isn't as twisted as I feared.
Most of the movie is only about the attacks, which are increasingly boring to watch since they take essentially the same form every time. There's an attempt to heighten tension with scenes of the actors trying to ignore the camera as it swoops between them and alternates erratically between black & white and color, demonstrating, I assume, the POV of the Entity. Ooooh, black & white, spooky! The only time this technique is effective is when they try removing Betsy from the house and the Entity speeds through the house and then over the countryside, seeking her out in apparent desperation (it finds her, resulting in a pretty spectacular flipping of a horse-drawn carriage).
Finally John confronts Kate Batts personally, begging her to call off her ghost, offering a gun pointed to his temple to appease her. She however informs him that she has nothing to do with it and the haunting is all of his own making. Huh. After still more attacks we finally learn that John has been sexually abusing Betsy (in a very confusing scene where Lucy witnesses an attack and in the middle of it sees her husband crouched over her daughter's bed). Suddenly we are subjected to a rapid series of flashbacks of previous scenes where apparently innocuous statements made by John take on a whole new significance. I like this trick in other, better movies (like The Usual Suspects and Fight Club) but here it just feels like it's insulting my intelligence. Anyhoo, Lucy poisons him, and THIS is how the spirit caused the death of a human...sort of indirectly, but it sure sounded good on the trailer.
The film ends in book-ended fashion back in the present day, with the mother seeing the girl off to spend the weekend with the separated father, and the doll from the attic warning her to help her....implying of course that her daughter is similarly being abused.
Having nothing better to do, I watched the interview with Sissy Spacek in the bonus features. The interview is conducted by the director himself; fitting, as he comes across as the hugest egomaniac I've ever seen. His first question is "Sissy, how did I get so lucky as to have such a great actress as yourself in my movie?" Her answer was only that it "had a good story." With all due respect to Ms. Spacek, I suspect it had a lot more to do with the slowing trickle of scripts crossing her agent's desk. He next asked her what was "the experience" of working with him as a director. Sheesh.
Another bonus was "internet promos." The funniest of these was a representative of G.H.O.S.T. (Ghost Hunters of Springfield, Tennessee, a deceptively clever name), a backwoods hick who helpfully explained that a ghost was merely a dead person who hasn't moved on to the other side yet, and furthermore that a witch is simply a human who practices witchcraft. This was the best the filmmakers could offer in the way of an "expert" investigator's input. Guess the members of T.A.P.S. couldn't be reached for comment.
Boring. Boring and contrived, and according to those more familiar with the legend of the Bell Witch, another case of shameless Hollywood sensationalism. And hardly the "most terrifying film of the year," another in its list of farfetched claims. 0.5 out of 5
~*~
Last but not least, it looks like some Connecticut folks have more money than brains, I'm ashamed to say: CT couple pays $200 for Colorado snow on eBay. Oh my god. I had no idea our parking lot was such a goldmine. I said this would be the craziest thing I'd hear all year, but my sister reminded me that Paris Hilton is still roaming free somewhere.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 04:52 pm (UTC)Insightful, right?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 07:04 am (UTC)Pics of the baby?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-18 06:48 am (UTC)I'm tryin'. The pics I've taken are either on a camera memory disk that won't connect to my computer, or on a roll of 35 mm film I haven't finished yet and am not optimistic about the outcome of.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 07:04 am (UTC)