On Friday afternoon, I received an, er, interesting phone call.
Blatantly A Salesman: Hello, this is Everest*. We’re going to see some of your neighbours… [sales patter about double glazing]
Me: All our windows are double-glazed and they’re pretty new, thanks.
BAT: How about doors? We can drop by and show you our brochure. Can we come by for a chat tomorrow?
Me: No. We’re busy.
BAT: How about Sunday?
Me: No, we’re busy.
BAT: Well, we’ll just drop a brochure off on Monday afternoon, then. Can I take your name?
Me: Why?
BAT: It just says ‘The Householder’ here.
Me: I’d prefer not to give you my name.
BAT: We’ll end it here, then. *click*
I guess their windows are selling so well that they’ve taken to trying to sell mailing lists.
* Unless it’s someone trying to sully Everest’s name…?
I’m getting pretty fed up hearing the endless ‘analysis’ of The Libyan being released On Compassionate Grounds. That’s why I’m going to talk about it. For the last time, I hope.
- If people outside of Libya didn’t make such a fuss, The Libyan’s return home would have been much less celebrated. They’ve practically martyred him while he’s still alive.
- If the decision was taken to send The Libyan to a hospice in Scotland, no one would want him in their neighbourhood anyway.
- Providing the security force needed to keep The Libyan from being sprung or murdered would have cost a phenomenal amount of money, money the government doesn’t have.
- Choosing to deny The Libyan release on compassionate grounds even though he meets the criteria is giving The Libyan extra-special treatment.
- The outraged American government will still buy Libya’s oil and gas. Let’s have the outraged American families lobby their government to stop dealing with Libya and telling the rest of the country to suck it up and pay more for their fuel.
- I wonder how Alex Salmond likes being America’s whipping boy?
Neil and I have undertaken Quite The Project*. We bought a box set featuring all the movies that are, supposedly, part of The Exorcist series, and here’s how we’ve judged them so far (because judging horror films is an important part of a cultured person’s life, didn’t you know):
- Dominion — hmm, the plot kind of sounds like Exorcist: The Beginning, which we recall seeing once a few years ago. Another young person gets possessed, there’s an underground cavern for demon worship and a very elaborate church with scenes of God casting Lucifer down to hell. The lady doctor is quite hot. The movie is slow, the digital graphics are woeful, generally NOT GOOD.
- Exorcist: The Beginning — we thought Dominion came before this one but Google tells me it was released one year later (because this one got bad reviews). It’s basically a similar story using similar sets and a more conventionally beautiful doctor, the former Bond chick. The digital effects are better, the story is slightly more what you would expect, but it’s weird watching both prequels in the same night. Deja vu! But also NOT TOO GOOD.
- The Exorcist — the original and the best, right? I’ve never seen this, only a few scenes here and there, and I’ve read small parts of the novel that inspired it (somewhat nasty for a primary school kid to read, I think). PRETTY DECENT, but why would the demon be all, “The Bitch is Mine!” then simply acquiesce when Father Karras shouts, “Take me!”? I also like how really only Regan’s room was the scene of the action, with the rest of the house left relatively untouched by the possession. Also, the beginning of the film shows the demon statue uncovered by Father Merrin (again?! He’s older in this one, surely he remembers finding it three decades previous) as standing proud above ground, not in the underground cavern (from the two prequels — he must have been really confused by that).
- Exorcist II: The Heretic — one of the WORST FILMS EVER. Words cannot describe how woefully bad this is. All I can do is compare it to two recent film choices Neil has made (Outlander and The Sin Eaters), and put it to you that Neil should no longer be allowed to choose any of the films we watch.
Exorcist III beckons (heh).
* This is distinct from The Kitchen Project, which we should have hopefully concluded in a few weeks’ time (finally). Neil is allowed to do DIY.
Quote of the day from Still crazy after all these years:
To believe this, you have to believe that the Bushies were both wicked enough to murder thousands of Americans and brilliant enough to execute such a mind-bogglingly sophisticated plot without a single leak—in a culture where Richard Nixon could not even hush up a burglary.
I actually agree that Megrahi — terminally ill — should be released on compassionate grounds. Victim’s families who are angry are understandably so, but he’s going to die soon anyway, and compassion is really something we should hold on to as human beings.The reality is we need to keep Libya sweet too, and the US is just making noise so they look (to domestic audiences) like they tried, but they want Libya’s oil and gas too, you can quote me on that.
Methinks someone is jealous:
Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the genre of Now We Know Better. We watch and know better about male chauvinism, homophobia, anti-semitism, workplace harassment, housewives’ depression, nutrition and smoking… Mad Men is currently said to be the best and ‘smartest’ show on American TV. We’re doomed.
The genius of Mad Men is it shows even though we’re supposed to know better and we’re apparently more enlightened, more open, more tolerant, more whatever, we’ve gone completely the other way in terms of relating to others and we’re as miserable as ever. And it’s damned entertaining drama — it’s not a documentary, people! IMHO.
(And Don Draper is still hot.)
Via TEV.
I don’t like separate CSS files that come packaged with plugins. It’s a pain the bum when you need to customise it and the developer releases an update.
