Thursday, May 31, 2007

super cool dance dance wow!


I've joined the craze. A couple of weeks ago Mike got me a Dance Dance Revolution mat and game for our Xbox. I am a jumping, stumbling, hip-shaking fool. If anyone saw me trying this thing, they'd have a good laugh- but I don't care, bring me some more of those electronic-sounding remixes.

I'm not so sure that this is the best kind of exercise for me, because I think that I have kind of crappy knees. Every couple of years, I will somehow manage to lock my entire leg, so that it is the most unbearable feeling in the world to try and move my leg at the knee. I did this back in the fall, and couldn't move until I had taken about 10 pain killers and warmed up my leg with a heating pad. And after I sit through a movie at a theater, my knees are so creaky that I look like I need a walker to get out of the theater. Cycling is supposed to be the best exercise for bad knees, but a used DDR mat and game are much cheaper than a stationary bike or a gym membership. And I like DDR a lot more- an hour of exercise goes by pretty quickly on that mat.

Another problem might be the stomping noises that go along with this game- something that downstairs neighbors might not appreciate, especially in New York. We'll see how that goes- is this a good enough reason to make a first floor apartment a priority?

My dream is to some day go to an arcade, act like I have no idea what I'm doing when I walk up to that DDR machine, then show up all the little 15-year-old punks who spend their lives on these things. It's like something out of a movie, right? But first I have to get past the stage of clumsily stabbing my feet at the different marks, feebly attempting to have some rhythm and balance.

Friday, May 18, 2007

i threw up in my head

Song lyrics that I have misunderstood entirely and replaced with nonsensical versions of what I hear:

Smooth Operator (Sade): "smooth operator" became "smooth of a red R"

What's Love Got to Do With It (Tina Turner): "what's love, but a second-hand emotion" became "what's love, but a sack in handy motion"

Tiny Dancer (Elton John): "lay me down in sheets of linen" became "lay me down and she's so gladly"

And finally, the best, all-time craziest lyric replacement I have made, one that Mike will never let me live down, and will always serenade me with whenever the song comes on:

Dolphin's Cry (Live): "love will lead us, alright, love will lead us, she will lead us" became "Lolita's alright, Lolita's shape will meet us"

The only reason I admit these is because they really are hilarious even to me, and I KNOW that everyone has done this (feel free to share your own lyric blunders!). The thing I can't figure out is why people will come up with lyrics that make absolutely no sense (mine being the prime example).

And if you want to get a laugh out of some other lyric mishaps, I discovered a site called Kiss This Guy (in reference to the Jimi Hendrix lyrics "kiss the sky", I think from Purple Haze).

My favorite misheard lyrics by far are, instead of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago" (a Beastie Boys song), "smack my midget and then we'll go".

Good times.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

am i roger ebert? you bet i am.

I watched Little Miss Sunshine for the second time the other night- I hadn't seen it in like a year, or whenever it came out in theaters- and I loved it even more this time around. The characters are so endearing, and the crap they go through, while possibly exaggerated at times, is still so much more life-like than so much of what else is out there. Or maybe I am a crazy person who can relate to other crazy people- also a logical explanation.

If you're reading this and haven't seen the movie, I might spoil it for you- although it's not necessarily the plot that drives the movie, I'd say it's the characters' reactions to events.

Right off the bat, all of the main characters are introduced in a sort of montage, and each one is dealing with a situation that seems somewhat larger than life, when in reality each situation could be a part of anyone's life. Dreams of becoming a beauty queen, drug abuse, attempted suicide, an awkward attempt to be a teenager who stands out, and a grand career aspiration that is forced into mediocrity. I love one of the first scenes when the family sits down to dinner- a family consisting of 3 generations related by blood and marriage, and a dinner consisting of a bucket of chicken, Sprite, and a salad that the mother insists be eaten. I can completely relate to the "bucket of chicken" dinners, the family convening from completely different places, and the dinner conversation that is hilariously odd for so many reasons.

The whole movie is a string of events that force the family to deal with each other and with their own struggles- in a way that is a lot less cheesy than what I just described. The best and most comical scene of the movie is the young girl, Olive, performing her dance routine for a beauty pageant. The routine turns out to be essentially a strip dance to the song "Super Freak", and it dawned on me when I watched the film the other night that it was a perfect commentary on the child beauty pageant phenomenon (I could only come to this conclusion after getting over the first-time shock of seeing a 6-year-old do what amounts to a strip-tease). The other girls in the pageant are spray-tanned, hairdoed, and slathered in makeup, and Olive stands next to them, looking and feeling like a "plain Jane". In all reality, the pageant parents have no grounds to be upset about Olive's dance, because it is really just the logical extension of the entire pageant mentality. I LOVE the way this scene played out, it was perfect. Satire at its best.

Of course, the movie ends with everyone feeling a little changed by the events of the weekend, and probably feeling a little closer to each other. But their problems are by no means solved, and on Monday they will have to face them again. The movie was realistic in that way, and on a level that I think a lot of people can understand and sympathize with. Oh yeah, and the horn that won't stop honking just about makes me pee myself every time.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

into the great wide open

My head is so far up in the clouds these days, it's just not even amusing at all. It's the reason why we bought like 6 things at Walmart last night, including avocados, parsley, tortilla chips, and a baby shower gift- and then got Chinese takeout for dinner. It's the reason why I spend way too much time looking at job prospects and nowhere near enough time on the rest of everything else. Mike's plans for the next 4 years are fairly well mapped out, and now it's my turn to figure out what I'm going to do.

I should be very happy that good things are happening- like Mike getting into a program with funding, and me having good jobs to consider and possibly even take, but I'm really nervous, and it's coming on pretty quickly. I have never been the type to get anxious about a move or a change, but I can tell as I get older that I will feel good about settling into a place, and a career, and so on and so forth. I know that even 4 years will pass quickly.

I am very grateful for these opportunities, and I doubt I would have shed tears on the plane leaving NY last time if I'd known that I'd be back soon. Every time I see Manhattan on TV or anywhere, I remind myself that it will be home again shortly. I already have plans for Spamalot, and The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, and Trader Joe's, and the Japanese place in Tuckahoe, and the Mexican place in Greenwich Village, and....who knows how many other places. I think the problem is that right now, I think there's still too many uncertainties, and too much to finish here in Wyoming, for me to feel ready. Hopefully that will happen soon enough.

But we did see Spiderman 3 last Sunday, and probably over 50% of the audience was kids. We sat next to a bunch of them, and although I was tempted to be apprehensive about them being noisy, it turned out to be the college guys on the other side of us who were the most annoying. The kids were great during the previews- the first being one for the Transformers movie, which I had no idea about until that preview. As soon as the preview started, there were collective gasps across the theater, and whispers of "Transformers!" Then, a preview for Shrek 3 came on (another movie that I knew nothing of until a couple of weeks ago), and the kids all giggled at everything in that preview. It was great- I'm going to make sure to see that movie in the theater as soon as it comes out, merely for the giggles. I really miss knowing all of the happenings in the kid world, and I can't wait to get in on the scene again.

I also got my hair cut last weekend, and discovered the most amazing piece of technology ever created by human hands. Behold the CHI. A ceramic hair straightener. My hair felt like it had been kissed by angels. I couldn't stop touching it the rest of the day! I dropped a very un-subtle hint to a certain husband of mine that this would be the most perfect birthday present- the CHI is not a cheap angel-kissing product, nor are its counterparts, the Sedu or the Solia. Not that I did research or anything.

Anyway, this is my life presently.