I brought home a trunkful of “the book” tonight. Literally.
Got the first use of my new piece of luggage today when I lugged home nearly half of the book order to my house. My #1 salesperson, ie, my mother, gently persuaded most of northern Massachusetts to buy a copy. And by “gently persuaded” I mean “put the fear of God in them to buy one lest lighting bolts shoot from her eyes and smote them thusly”. Most companies would do well to hire my mother to their sales force---if you give her a product she can back, she’ll take the ball, and run with it, usually through a brick wall in the process, leaving one of those Wile E. Coyote body-silhouettes in the process.
Seeing the book in print has been fairly cool, to say the least. I’m getting a bit more attention than usual from the company that shares our office space. My particular area in the office is made up of a cubicle farm consisting of the intersection of my company with a PR firm. Their part of the firm is filled with bright, energetic women who, in lieu of finding out my name, for two months called me “Singing Boy”. I guess there are worse names to be given, such as “Bald Boy”, “Glue-Sniffing Boy”, or “Boy Who Spoons With the Xerox Machine When He Thinks No One Is Looking”. So all in all, not so bad, but I’m glad they know my name.
But none of this is why you came today, right? You want some non-sequitur goodness, I can tell. Without any more delay:
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So what exactly is it about Angelina Jolie that makes nominally straight women swoon? I mean, I dig her and all, but I’d never picture her as the Rosetta stone of occasional lesbian lust. And the best part is, guys don’t even have to prompt girls to suddenly say things like, "God, I'd let her have her way with me." Girls just say this stuff. It’s times like these in which I believe in a higher power.
My friend Sarah pointed me to an article that describes a European ad campaign for Pepsi. It’s a gladiator-themed commercial, starring, among others, Enrique Iglesias as a despotic ruler. I’m hoping there’s a scene where he burns a pile of his CDs and starts to scream, “Am I not merciful???” That might make me make the switch.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” garnered 11 Oscar nominations, but none for acting. Peter Jackson, the director of the trilogy, claimed this was not in the spirit of Tolkein and promptly unleashed Shelob upon the voting members of the Academy.
So I’m watching the extras on “The Two Towers” the other night, and they have a feature on two guys who, for 18 months, did nothing but fashion chain-mail armor by hand. 18 months. They no longer have fingerprints, swear to God. In a related story, I barely got out of bed this morning.
I’m not sure I’ll ever watch a Viggo Mortensen movie again without, at one point, shouting “Why the f#ck didn’t you pick Eowyn, you Elven-whipped bastard?” at the screen. Just, you know, sayin’.
In its ad for “Hollywood Love Story” featuring Courtney Cox-Arquette and David Arquette, E! asks us to, “See Courtney & David become one”. Um, that’s a big ol’ can of “hell no” on my part. Thanks for warning me, though.
So, John Kerry and Cameron Crowe were separated at birth, right? Anyone else gonna back me up on this?
Now that Bennifer’s over, will Ben Affleck return from his current, orange hue to a more normal, pasty, Boston-esque skin tone? He was like a more citrus-laced George Hamilton for a while there. Just creepy.
No phrase makes me chuckle more than “market penetration”. Yes, it’s very second-grade of me. You’re gonna have to deal.
Incidentally, if you find yourself watching DVD extras about dudes without fingerprints making armor, you need to go to the nearest store immediately and buy a life.
I’m waiting for the ball to drop and have it revealed that Jai on “Queer Eye” is really 12. I wouldn’t blink an eye at this point.
The next logical step in the reality craze will be filming a reality show about topic X, but in reality, having secret cameras on the camera-men, who think they are filming a reality show, but in reality, they are the stars of the reality show. And for some reason, Veronica from “Road Rules” will be there, since we all know she’s got absolutely nothing better to do.
Most unlikely sequels: “Thelma and Louise 2”, “Gigli: The Reckoning”, and “Ishtar Returns”.
I’ve been recently linked in a Craiglist forum, which means that I and cross-dressing transvestites with a foot fetish have yet ANOTHER thing in common. (The “Casual Encounters” section both attracts and repulses me with equal aplomb. It’s the matter and anti-matter of my Web-viewing experience. These have to be mostly jokes, right? Please? I need to sleep at night, people. Just humor me.)
In anticipation of my book release, I’m trying to decide if I’d rather be called the “American Nick Hornby” or the “heterosexual David Sedaris” in my blurbs. I’m vacillating on this one.
I was gonna ramble about what possesses a parent to look at their new-born baby and decide, at that moment, to name him “Topher”, and then my co-worker last night pointed out that the name is short for “Christopher”, and then I felt dumb, so I decided to not put it in this week’s article.
Other names I can’t imagined being screamed out in bed without some element of “wow, that sounded odd” being though immediately after: “Petunia”, “Horace”, “Smokey”, and “Carrot Top”.
People always use the phrase, “to say the least”. Has anyone ever “said the most”? Can they "say the most" “with further adieu” while they are at it?
From my roommate: “How long before Michelob Ultra starts getting packaged in sports bottles?”
Has anyone ever used Photoshop for anything other than sick, evil purposes? Never has so much technology been used for so mundane a series of endeavors. I’m not asking it to cure cancer or anything, but surely there’s a better use than, say, this:
If someone can help me kill the world’s most indestructible pizza delivery boy in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”, I’d be much obliged. I may even cook you dinner. Running him over with my car does no good. Toppling a building upon his head merely tickles him. I think at one point I set off a nuclear explosion, rendering all other life within a 20-mile radius dead in a second, and he still brushed himself off and delivered two mushroom and pepperonis a minute later. I hate him.
Best quote of the week: “You know, I love ‘Jane’, but if she gave me a bad bird name, I’m gonna be f#cking pissed.” Runner-up, from the same girl: “I just like being glossy.” And yes, you had to be there, but it’s making me chuckle, and really, that’s all that matters. Update: Kira wants everyone to know she's a porn freak.
Songs crooned by yours truly at karaoke: “Patience” by Guns n’ Roses, “Mr. Jones” by the Counting Crows, and “Summer Loving” with Zowie, the only person besides me who even did karaoke before eleven. All these songs only after a half dozen pints and a shot called “Yo’ Mama’s Ass”. Alcohol is fun.
From the Commander, on the phone tonight: “I’m with our old housemate tonight here in NYC. She needed to buy a new suit for work, since she figured that fact that she only had three of them would reveal itself soon enough, no matter how many different shirts she wore underneath. She goes to the Banana Republic and lays out a bunch of gift cards and tells the sales person, ‘OK, this should pay for most of it, and I’ll put the rest of it on my credit card.’ The sales person looks at her and says, ‘This will pay for none of it. These gift certificates are from The Gap.’” (That’s just awesome.)
Speaking of awesome: has there ever been a better set of reviews on Amazon than this? I think not. (Thanks to Susan for that one.)
Posted by Ryan McGee at January 30, 2004 07:51 AM