Best Bookcase Day Ever

Looks like all those years assembling and marketing different bullshit finally paid off. I will never touch this bookcase; it is for display only.

The Variable

Sorry for the later-than-usual posting this Wednesday guys, but I’ve been up all night performing the ancient dance that is known locally as helpin’ someone move. Why was I doing this all night instead of all day? Because it’s not funny that way, and if I were doing it during the day then I would’ve been able to see the things we were taking out to the trash and not trip and fall constantly and probably not get that damn parking ticket for being parked legally on the street. At least LOST’s 100th episode is tonight, or I would just throw this Nintendo DS that I just got back after months of it being missing in that apartment straight through the window. Geez. I need coffee. And LOST.

Hotels are weird. They advertise the fuck out of weddings and tell you to call them and have your wedding done there, but then when you call they portray themselves as diffident bystanders, wondering what exactly it is that you believe a “wedding” to be, and demand to know your true intentions. This is of course preposterous, and when I then explain my true intentions they transfer me directly to a voicemail box and laugh as I wait for them to call me back. Did this happen to me directly? In a way, I mean, mostly no, but I totally know what I’m talking about and it’s not the lack of sleep. Well the joke’s on them, though. In spite of their caducity I will hold my wedding in a motel and broadcast the entire thing through some sort of interfeed right into their lobby. Then we’ll see who’s laughing! I encourage all of my engaged friends to do the same.

Also, much to my surprise, “The Glass City” (mine, not Toledo) was not named the city with the world’s best quality of living recently the management company Mercer. For the first time ever, my blog was soundly defeated by Vienna. First of all, I find it hard to believe that Vienna has so much more to offer than my blog. What’ve they got that I don’t? According to the study, excellent scores in the areas of: education, natural environment, housing, recreation, and political stability. While my blog may not have any of those, it DOES have this:

That's right, kittens climbing trees.

You’re welcome. See you Friday for the weekly box-office predictions!

PSA’s of Yore

This is pretty good stuff. Man, sometimes I wish it were the 70’s again.

What the Hell, “Obsessed”?

for ages 35 and up

Well, the weekend’s come and gone and AS PREDICTED, I was pretty far off base with my historically inaccurate box-office predictions. Here’s the list with my guesses parenthetically following:

1. Obsessed (x)
2. 17 Again (1)
3. Fighting (3)
4. The Soloist (x)
5. Earth (x)

So, all in all, 2 out of 5 is pretty shameful, although I did correctly guess that Fighting wouldn’t break 15 million and end up in 3rd place. “Earth” and “The Soloist” did about the same around 8.5 million, knocking out my returning-champs guesses of “Hannah Montana” and “Fast & Furious” by only a couple million. I guess the real shocker is the hilarious success of “Obsessed”, which earned 28.5 million its opening weekend, and managed a decent 22 out of 100 critical rating on MetaCritic. In all honesty I can’t rightly claim to know what stars aligned here to cause everyone to want to rush out and see it, because it sure as hell wasn’t the same crowd that ran out to see Beyonce in “Cadillac Records”. But then again, maybe it was. I’m not very good at predicting things, as we’ve found.

In other good news, Robert Rodriguez has clarified that he will not be writing or directing the new “Predator” reboot scheduled for a release next summer, and will only in fact be producing it. This of course leaves him to focus extensively on his grindhouse genre masterpiece “Machete”, and, one assumes, “Spy Kids 4: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.

A lot of you probably know this already, but I just read about it this morning so I thought I’d share how fucking weird I think this is. In the mid 90’s on NBC, Dana Carvey (of “Opportunity Knocks” fame) was given his own show aptly titled “The Dana Carvey Show”, in which he took a writing credit and starred in the variety show-esque sketch comedy offering until it was promptly cancelled after six episodes (man, even “Dollhouse” got twice that). What’s weird though, is that perusing the writing credits will force you to do a number of double takes until you’re convinced that you have to check this show out. Writers for the six episodes include: Charlie Kauffman, Steven Colbert, Steve Carell, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Glaser (Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Delocated, Human Giant), Dave Chappelle, Michael Stoyanov (Mr. Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), Robert Smigel, Dino Stamatopoulos (Mr. Show, Morel Orel, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), and a few others. What the hell? I know I have to give everything a chance, but in my long list of things I still have to give a chance, anything with Dana Carvey is pretty much automatically bumped to the bottom. So, if any of you have seen this show let me know, ’cause apparently I now have to track it down.

Lastly, I’d like to quickly explain my movie rating system. It’s not all that complicated, but it does differ from most of my friends and/or critics way of judging movies. It’s a letter grade system (like from school!) and it goes a little something like this:

• A : Among the best films I’ve ever seen
• A- : Nearly perfect, but with one or two significant flaws
• B+ : Much better than average, but with some baggage holding it back
• B : Pretty decent, and something I would recommend
• B- : Worth watching, but not really something I would recommend
• C+ : Just barely above average, but not worth the money you’ll pay to see it
• C : Completely average, and most likely a waste of time
• C- : A waste of time, but not laughably bad
• D+ : A film that has clearly not tried to win its fans over
• D : A bad movie that I would caution people against
• D- : Would be a complete failure if not for one or two things that it does right
• F : A movie that I feel insulted for having watched, and that exists only to insult its audience and make money

Typically I’ll only go out of my way to recommend B+’s or higher, but unfortunately most movies I see aren’t worth the time that I put in, and while a “C” movie is still okay, I could have been watching a “B” or an “A”. Also, I’ve realized that I tend to give credit (maybe unjustly) to a movie, sometimes knocking it up a whole letter grade if there’s one facet of it that wins me over. For example, I gave “Wordplay” (the crossword documentary) a higher grade than I otherwise would have because Jon Stewart was in it and hilarious. Other things that win me over: beautiful women, catchy musical numbers, and references to my blog.

this almost has it all

Oh, and before I go, make sure you prepare properly for the abomination that is the new X-Men Origins Wolverine film by picking up an $80 blu-ray X-Men trilogy. Released tomorrow!

The Friday Numbers Game!

Hey everyone, good news: my blog still exists! After carefully studying all of the stats and numbers, exporting them to an Excel spreadsheet, adding them all together and dividing by 18, I’ve come to the conclusion that my new, non-MySpace blog is frickin’ crazy-successful in comparison to my old blog. I think the reason for this has to be that there’s just a bunch of new people (most likely Facebookies and Twitterites) that are reading, ’cause lord knows my writing hasn’t gotten any better. Or has it? Let me try writing a sentence: Take Your Child To Work Day only exists to teach kids how amazing working in a cubicle will be for them when they grow up and get a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts. Nope, still the same old writing. So, thanks, new readers! Also, I’ve learned that Toledo, Ohio is known affectionately as the “Glass City” because although no one has ever been to Toledo, rumor has it that all of its residents are made entirely out of glass. Now, typically I’d be worried about some sort of infringement here, but no one in Toledo has even the most basic understanding of the internet, so I’m not too worried.

Toledo, 2007

BOX OFFICE PREDICITION TIME! Now, keep in mind I’m a little rusty, and even when I was at the height of my game I still wasn’t all that good. It’s an ancient blogging tradition, though, that I became very fond of and now I have to subject you all to its glory. Here we go!

1. 17 Again
2. Obsessed
3. Fighting
4. Hannah Montana: VH1 Behind The Music
5. Fast and Furious

I know I’m taking a few risks here: mainly, assuming that “17 Again” will maintain its ridiculous popularity and manage to make at least 15 million its second time around, and that neither “Obsessed” nor “Fighting” break that 15 million threshold. I’m assuming that Disney’s “Earth” won’t place because it’s not Earth day anymore, and people will take Miley Cyrus and Vin Diesel over endangered animals any day. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be wrong about this one.

On a happy note, though, I totally saw a movie that actually broke my “B or less” ratings drought that’s lasted for a month and a half. Surprisingly it was an under-budget offbeat comedy from 2001 entitled “Wet Hot American Summer“. Often times I’ll see a comedy or action or horror movie and it will be truly awful, and I’ll say this, and the response is sometimes “but the movie doesn’t take itself seriously”. Well, great, but you can still have a movie that doesn’t confine itself to its genre’s standards (ie not take itself seriously) and still make a great film. Tarantino has based his career on it, and director David Wain does a pretty bang-up job in this film. It’s pretty much a campy coming-of-age story set in 1981 on the last day of summer camp. Watching it feels a lot like watching a non-documentary version of Reno 911 or Strangers with Candy, or some other better than average Comedy Central show, and with good reason: Wain has actually either wrote, directed, or starred in a whole host of Comedy Central and Adult Swim shows. Another pleasant surprise was the knock-out performances of David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black. I can’t even really say anything bad about the performances of Amy Poelher, Molly Shannon and Janeane Garofalo, all whom generally annoy me on a regular basis. Now, the movie is by no means perfect, and quite a few of the gags fall pretty short of the mark and/or drag the film as a whole down. Fortunately, though, the gags that do work are really funny and lead me to rate the film a solid B+. I guess I’ll wait ’til next week to explain my super-complex non-star rating system, because it is so complex, that it may need an entire blog of its own to fully explain itself.

Well, there you have it: a complete week’s worth of blogging. Many said I couldn’t do it, and to all those people I say Ha! Now who’s popular? Now who’s lead quarterback for the football team? That would apparently be me, internet. My brother is performing at Harper tonight a piece that he’s been working on for quite a while, and naturally I’ll be attending. When the video’s online I’ll make sure to link it up for you guys.

Have a happy, holiday-less weekend.

Moving Day

Well, it was bound to happen. No sooner than I completely reject and abandon MySpace blogs and sign up (and advertise and write) for a totally new “Google Blog”, I get completely sick of it and move somewhere else. Really, I’m doing this just to fuck with you guys, but I hope you’re all content with my new choice to move the city here to WordPress. Not only do I think the layout is a lot cleaner, but it provides me with a lot more admin options and also shows you guys my Twitter feed so you never have to sign up for a twitter account! You’re all very, very welcome. Also I think there may be a way for you guys to subscribe to the posts, but I’m not sure so I’ll let you know.

More good news is that (all on my own) I worked out an update schedule so that you guys can come to rely on set in stone posting days that will occur regularly every week barring some sort of horrible catastrophe. These days will always be Monday, Wednesday, and naturally Friday. To those of you who are saying that I’m just blatantly stealing Penny Arcade’s business model, I appreciate that you read the same blogs I do. Moving on.

Today is Earth Day, which is a holiday steeped in religious fanaticism and time-honored traditions; it is like Christmas and New Years and Groundhog Day all rolled into one, and I’ve never been one to shy away from ultra mega combo holidays (like St. Patrick’s Easter Day Eve). So, my Earth Day present to you (not to the Earth–it gets enough from me) is this fantastic link to an instructional video on how to make your own messenger bags out of plastic grocery bags. Make no mistake, it is absolutely bizarre and I’m having a hard time deciding between the guy and the girl who’s into this craze more, but hey, they’re kinda helping the environment (?).

I’ve also decided to cave and do weekly box-office predictions (old-school style) on Fridays of every week. I’m not especially good at it, and if anything it’ll give you guys a chance to challenge me and most likely win this contest on a weekly basis. It’s like the at-home game version of my blog that you win by coming on the show. Congratulations!

Also, a very happy birthday to Brandy, a former co-worker of mine and regular reader of my blog. I don’t know much about Brandy, other than that she has kids and talks about them on Facebook. So, you can all help her celebrate by finding her on Facebook and saying something about her kids. OH, also, happy belated birthday to Jenifer, who is also a regular reader but does not have kids.

See you guys on Friday.

Branding & Re-branding

As I sat down to write this blog, a sudden and alarming thought occurred to me: I’m not writing to my MySpace top 40 anymore. No, no, in reality it’s quite the opposite (well, not literally the opposite. I’m not writing to the NetherMySpace -40). I’m not sure, but I’m pretty certain that my audience here is vastly different from my audience there. Don’t let it go to your heads, I’m not saying you guys are better or anything, even if you are, which you probably aren’t. So what does this mean, exactly? Well, I’m no fan of censorship, but frankly I have to treat this blog with a little more respect than I did my last one, and if that means I should curtail some of the subjects I’m more used to discussing, then so be it. Point of fact, I’ve just now worked up a list (mostly in my head) of typical blog subjects that will be discontinued in my new blog, here:

– Puppies
– The Bermuda Triangle
– Any News Item Made Popular Before 2008
– Jate
– The Evils Of Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, And The Internet
– Killer Dance Moves
– Christmas Songs’ True Meanings
– My Past Life As An Alaskan Fisherman
– My Brief Career As A Fake Gossip Columnist
– My Favorite Rhyming Words

I hope I didn’t leave anything out. But what does that leave me to even talk about? Honestly I’m not too sure, but I think movie reviews, general editorialization, extreme abuse of harsh language and the moon landing are still safe. So how ’bout that fuckin’ moon landing?

Actually, I feel like telling you guys about an awesome movie I just saw for the first time, but apparently according to my list, this hasn’t happened since I saw “Judgement at Nuremberg” way back on March 10th. What the fuck? I’ve seen 22 movies since then and sadly, not one of them has really broken a self-rated letter grade of “B” since then, and believe me when I tell you it’s not for lack of trying. Five of those films were from pretty reliable directors, and even more were from people who credited themselves as “director” at the end of the film (and usually beginning, too).

So, sadly, I must ask for your help, here. Do you know of a movie I should see that I won’t absolutely hate, or even worse, think is mediocre? If you do, please either comment in this blog, message me on Facebook, or @ reply me (or whatever it’s called) on Twitter (@copperglass). I’ve said this many, many times before but I’ll say it again: I don’t trust you people. Anyone reading this on the internet has proven to me that they haven’t yet figured out how to access my blog via newspaper, and therefore has shown that they cannot be trusted. I’ll make an exception this time, though.

There’s a theater near my house that I thought closed a year or two ago, and this was reaffirmed when driving past it the other day I saw that they still had Hannah Montana and Fast & The Furious displayed on the marquee. Well, imagine my surprise when I was told that indeed this theater was still open, and yes, there is a new Hannah Montana movie and an even newer Fast and Furious movie. What’s even scarier, I guess, is that 3 of the 5 top movies this weekend were family films (not even going to mention Zac Efron’s latest romp). I suppose, however, that I can take comfort in the fact that “13 Going On 30 II” and “Crank 2” only made a combined $30m. Guess which one of those made 80% of that money and at least made the top 5? Yeah, I know, it’s a sad day for me, too.

Next week looks almost equally bleak with both Beyonce and Jaime Foxx breaking back into the game with separate dramas. I’d like to predict next weekend’s top 5 this early on, but I’m no super-hero, so maybe I’ll wait ’til later in the week.

Don’t worry, I’m trying to devise an adequate blog schedule so you guys don’t have to keep checking back everyday, and considering that you actually have to be a Google member to subscribe, I figure I should make it as easy as possible for you guys.

I’ll keep you guys on speed-dial and call you as soon as I got it figured out.

Blogging 101

I don’t know why I should feel uneasy about getting back into this whole blogging thing. For once I’m completely free from MySpace’s frigid and slushy grip, which means that I’m free to finally tell it how it is; preach the truth, so to speak. It feels like a metaphor is in order.

It’s like I’ve graduated from the elementary school over here and the president himself has come down from on high to say, “Chris, good news. You much too smart for junior high school and high school and whatever comes after high school, and we’re putting you right into the work force. Bring a suitcase and a toothbrush.”

So, here I am, toothbrush in hand, ready to deliver my sermon of justice to the masses… and, I suddenly realize that my toothbrush is not a toothbrush at all. Unfortunately, it is a rather inconvenient electric comb, and naturally this does not help me at all.

And now this metaphor has spun wildly out of control. The president signals me from stage left with a fist-shaking gesture and beads of sweat begin to drip from my brow onto my new pin-stripe shirt which I’ve bought for this very special occasion. “Line!” I shout and at that moment the president rushes me and knocks me clear off the stage, sending my electric comb (electricomb) flying into the audience (presumably caught by one lucky patron).

That patron is you! Congratulations, sir or madam, because you’ve caught my fancy electric comb of truth, and it is now up to you to decide how best to use it (and unfortunately I bought it second-hand so it didn’t come with a manual).

Let me start by congratulating my brother Ryan on his recent progress in moving out to Los Angeles where he is to attend an arts school for the gifted (is he an X-Men?) and, one assumes, raise chickens. How does this affect me, though? All I know is that there’s no way he can take his piano with him, and I can’t fit it in my room, so I can only hope to acquire a video camera and record me and my friends dropping it from some sort of abandoned high-rise. It will be a viral video hit on YouTube entitled “Falling Piano”. It will be, of course, very clever.

I feel obligated to mention at least one of the many movies I’ve seen lately, and while “Observe & Report” or “X-Men 4” or “The Watchmen” would all be very relevant, I think the best movie I’ve seen in at least a month (according to my list) is a 1977 drama starring–but not written by or directed by–Woody Allen about the Blacklist entitled “The Front”. It’s about a talentless bookie who’s asked to front as a writer for several blacklisted writers, pretending that he wrote the scripts for the studio and taking a cut of the money. Trouble naturally ensues when the House Committee starts to get suspicious that Woody’s character may, in fact, be a Communist. While this seems the set up for a pretty generic comedy, you’d be surprised how deadly serious the movie actually is. Considering that the movie was created by a group of formerly blacklisted writers and actors, it’s no surprise that it hits the nail pretty squarely on the head, at least in terms of portraying the grim atmosphere of 50’s and 60’s Hollywood accurately. And, taking that whole blacklist thing into account again, it’s also no surprise that the moral value it offers is handled bluntly in a very satisfying and professional manner. Go see it, you know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I think I’ve actually written enough today. Next time I’ll try to include pictures. That would be cool, right?