Well, with Kirk and Bones fucking with a planet of primitive aliens. They steal some kind of holy scroll, and then get chased through a red jungle.
Seems like kind of a dick move.
Well, it’s not very clear, but ostensibly they’ve stolen the scroll to get chased, in order to draw the aliens away from a volcano that’s about to explode.
Okay, that seems reasonable.
Except that 1) when the volcano erupts, it’s going to kill everybody on the planet, so it hardly matters where they are, and 2) Spock is getting dropped down into the volcano to set off a cold fusion bomb.
Wait, what?
Yeah, he sets off the cold fusion bomb and all the lava freezes.
You know cold fusion isn’t actually cold, right? It’s only “cold” in the sense that opposed to regular fusion it’s not a bazillion degrees hot.
Huh.
And did you say Spock was in the volcano? Why the hell didn’t they just beam the bomb in there?
Um, something about the planet’s magnetic field. Although they do beam Spock out of the volcano just a few minutes later, so…
And why did Spock have to go with the bomb to set it off? Are you telling me in the 23rd century that people don’t have a way to detonate bombs remotely? That’s stupid.
Well —
And why the fuck is the Enterprise just carrying around a cold fusion suitcase bomb anyways?
Look, you’re getting very upset, and this is just the first scene of the movie.
Today's Photos:
My intentions are good, but I'm drowning in schedules.
I've never gotten the sense that J.J. Abrams really cares all that much about the Star Trek franchise. Abrams has said that he was far more into Star Wars—as any reasonable person would be—and that his first, well-received Star Trek was more about rebooting a franchise than any particular passion he had for the original brand. The first film, thusly, has a shake-it-up quality that's sort of irresistible, sci-fi nerds both adhering to and upending the expectations of fanboys. (They even make a "Beam Me Up, Scotty" joke.) It was fun, if ultimately a bit empty. But I'm not sure you can pull off an improved sequel—almost an expectation, in the world of The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2—without some real, deep affection for the material. Abrams is going to direct one of the upcoming Star Wars films, and in Star Trek Into Darkness, you can almost feel him rushing through this to get to something he really cares about. Abrams is too natural an entertainer to let anything get boring, but this one, in many ways, feels like everyone just going through the paces.
Scandal Finale
This show is amazing and ridiculous.
It's tricky, twisted and packed with "OMG! WTF!?!" moments (Hitmen! Callgirls! Government Spies!) without being serious.
As much as I'd like to deny it, the state test is the culmination of our year. But we still have a month to go. So we're trying some new things this year, including a short unit on the stock market and consumer math.
The above video is a pretty good overview of how stock is created and what it means.
Email
Electronic communication is so impersonal. I'd rather talk face to face. And seeing as how I'm in the people business, I think this is a relatively inoffensive stance to take. The people who work closely with me know that I'm not a big email person, and they just yell at me when I wander into their rooms (which I do CONSTANTLY). Over the past few years, the amount of useless communications that come through my email has increased to the point where it's difficult even to skim every message to determine if they are junk.
Today, there was an unfortunate "Reply All" hit at work
(I was not involved in any way).
When someone dropped by to tell me about it, I had no clue because I had not followed the email string. Why would I? This had nothing to do with me and the conversation spanned five messages and over 2000 words.
What a waste of time.
But once I was told about the issue, it did bother me. Only because the message came from someone who never volunteers to help criticizing someone who volunteers for everything.
We live in a world with walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.
Who's gonna do it?
You?!?
I have neither the time, nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of freedom which I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way, or grab a gun and stand a post.
Either way, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE ENTITLED TO!!
This led to a conversation about my prioritization of email and where it fits in my professional life. I was reminded (gently) that email is annoying but probably part of our professional responsibilities. But yeah, it's probably ok to have strengths and weaknesses and we all excel at different things.
Let me be clear about this next part. I'm probably wrong and the sender is probably right.
Anyway, what got me thinking about email is that the major policy shift I missed in a one sentence email.
It was a long sentence and it was the same email I've received hundreds of times.
"Hey, the weather looks weird so we'll keep the tennis game on unless the weather gets worse..."
So I assumed the last part of that email would continue in that way.
I went about my day, keeping an eye on the courts to know if we needed to cancel at the end of the day.
I know it seems weak that tennis matches are cancelled if the courts are a little wet. But it's like trying to play basketball on sand or playing ice hockey on concrete.
You just can't do it.
At the end of the day, the courts were still wet and when I went to cancel the match, I thought I was doing the right thing... until our AD came running down the hall waving her hands, telling me to stop. We were going to have the other school come over to play pickleball.
Huh?
We've never done that before?
What are you talking about?
I've been working here for years and we've never just switched sports. (At the time we had this conversation, I was slightly flustered and confused so I may have said something stupid like "How are we supposed to learn a new sport?" Remember, I know I was wrong about all this.)
So the second part of that email I didn't read? It said something like
"...worst case scenario we can play pickleball in the gym. Let me know if that's ok."
Our kids didn't get to play, the kids from the other school didn't get to play, and we still owed money for the bus.
Crap.
I screwed that up every way possible.
If I had just read the one important sentence out of the 1,348 sentences that crammed my inbox today, I could have avoided this.
Clearly, I need to get a better handle on this.
I went from 647 unread emails, down to 30.
(most of those were spam or updates that weren't important)
And I'm finally deleting old email from previous years.
I was keeping them because one time somebody said something about saving emails for lawsuits. I don't think anyone is suing a middle school.
Today's Photo:
Dad and I had the afternoon free (because of my massive bungling up above). We used some kind of extended pruner to cut this tree back. So that was fun.
May 16, 2013 SIFF is here! The schedule is massive and (sadly) you can't always drop everything to run and see a movie. Here's my list of what I'd like to see. I'll probably make it to four of them. But it's good to hang on to a list like this because these movies will pop back up at the SIFF Uptown or at Scarecrow. Also, The Stranger has a solid SIFF guide and a SIFF blog.
Touchy Feely Lynn Shelton’s latest is a touching comedy about touching people. Returning after their collaboration on Your Sister's Sister, Rosemarie DeWitt plays Abby, a massage therapist who develops a sudden aversion to bodily contact. This gets in the way of her job, of course, but also her relationship with her boyfriend Jesse (Scoot McNairy), who has just asked her to move in with him. Or maybe the affliction arises because she has agreed to move in with him. Meanwhile, her emotionally absent brother Paul (Josh Pais) has been relying on his daughter Jenny (Ellen Page) to keep his dying dental practice functioning, at least until he accidentally discovers he can heal a painful jaw disorder. As Abby retreats from the world in order to gain more perspective, Paul enters into it more fully. He even starts seeing Abby’s Reiki master (Allison Janney) who he normally would have dismissed outright as New Age nonsense. As with all of Shelton’s films, the performances are phenomenal: DeWitt deftly balances discomfort with a longing to connect; Pais is heartfelt and hilarious; and Ellen Page is heartbreaking as a girl struggling with unrequited love. In a movie full of people who are uncomfortable in their own skin, they each confront and discover the healing power of human connections.
Crystal Fairy Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) expands his horizons as Jamie, a rude, crude, ignorant dude visiting Chile in search of mild-altering substances. Inspired by a Bosch painting, Jamie and his friends embark on a journey into the Atacama Desert in search of a fabled and hallucinatory cactus, the ultimate trip. But when Jamie meets Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann), a sprightly and carefree neo-hippie from San Francisco, she decides to tag along, forcing Jamie to reconsider his unsympathetic and uncompassionate attitude.Crystal Fairy marks the English-language debut of Chilean director Sebastián Silva, whose previous film The Maid played in SIFF 2009.
More Than Honey As entrancing as March of the Penguins, More Than Honey features some of the most spectacular footage of bees ever put on film. But this is not just a picturesque nature documentary. It’s also an investigation into a mystery. What is killing off the world’s bee populations at an alarming rate? This dire situation is devastating to the human species, too; without bees, one-third of the world’s food would not exist. To find answers, Academy Award®-nominated director Markus Imhoof travels the world, talking to and observing the inner-workings of beekeepers, farmers, and scientists. Through the use of amazing point-of-view cinematography that defies the imagination, we actually soar through the air with the bees. A top audience favorite at both the Vancouver International Film Festival and IDFA (the world’s most prestigious documentary festival), the movie is also a personal narrative. Imhoof’s grandfather owned an orchard and cannery and built a special house for 150 bee colonies. Heartfelt, gorgeously shot, and suspenseful, More Than Honey is an important, thought-provoking, and enriching experience.
The Spectacular Now Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) is a high school senior with a freewheeling outlook on life-while teetering on the verge of alcoholism. Seldom seen without a drink in hand, Sutter is the life of the party with no real plan for the future beyond maintaining his long-time job at the local men's clothing store. Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley) is Sutter's polar opposite. College-bound and a bit of a nerd, she's always been one step ahead of her peers. Excited for what the future may hold beyond the confines of her small town, Aimee's been careful to keep her nose clean and her record perfect. But, when she finds Sutter passed out on her family's lawn one Sunday morning, they both wind up having their worlds rocked in ways that will profoundly affect each of their lives. Featuring stand out performances from Woodley and Teller, pitch-perfect direction from James Ponsoldt, and a stellar script from the writing team of Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter ((500) Days of Summer), The Spectacular Now is a seriously funny comedy about teens dealing with very adult problems.
Teddy Bears Andrew (David Krumholtz), despondent over the death of his mother, invites his closest friends, two couples, and his devoted girlfriend Hannah (Melanie Lynskey), to join him in the Joshua Tree desert for an emotionally healing retreat—which just so happens to include a therapeutic orgy. His shocking request is dismissed as a joke, but Andrew is convinced that feeling a wealth of love all at once is the only way he can overcome depression. An outrageous weekend transpires as this group of friends debate Andrew's request, share uncomfortable hot tub time, and visit a nearby town in hopes of finding an alternate solution with some ladies of the night. But the time to decide is running out, and Andrew is becoming more and more unhinged. Using the magical, desolate landscape of the Joshua Tree desert as their backdrop, husband and wife directorial team Thomas Beatty and Rebecca Fishman explore the comedic depths of despair, relationships, sexual longing, and unjust demands with a top-notch ensemble cast that also includes Gillian Jacobs (Community), Ahna O'Reilly (The Help), and Jason Ritter, plus a moving cameo from the legendary Ned Beatty.
Furever In 2012 alone, the 62% of Americans who own pets spent $52.9 billion on them.Furever not only shows us the outlandish ways pet owners can contribute to this sum of money, but also offers an intimate look into why this investment is profound. Weaving interviews with pet mourners, veterinarians, scientists, academics, and undertakers, this documentary looks beyond the meaning of these precious creatures and investigates how the act of memorializing them is distinctly human. In imagery that is at once striking and meditative, director Amy Finkel visually explores the fine line between our perception of meaning and lifelessness. Furever is a sober spectacle with something for everyone as it explores practices such as taxidermy, mummification, and cloning; drawing on themes of death, spirituality, industry, mental health, popular perception, and money.
From the banks of the Tennessee River -- "The Singing River" as the local Native Americans called it -- emerged some of the most creative and defiant music of a generation. In the 1960s, the tiny town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama became one of the most sought- after recording destinations in the country, attracting artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to Lynyrd Skynyrd, from Paul Simon to the Rolling Stones. At the heart of this musical movement is Rick Hall, the founder of FAME Studios, a place where black and white musicians could meet as musical equals during Alabama's turbulent struggles with race relations. Overcoming his impoverished childhood and a tragedy-filled life, Hall was instrumental in creating both the Muscle Shoals Sound and its legendary rhythm section, The Swampers. Director Greg Camalier provides a bounty of performance stills and archival footage inter- twined with illuminating recollections from the artists themselves. Anecdotes from Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Stones's Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Etta James, and others redefine a multitude of songs, including "Respect," "Brown Sugar," and "Free Bird." While no single film could be the comprehensive word on the Muscle Shoals Sound, Camalier has created one that stands as a testament to its magnetism, mystery, and continuing influence today.
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is a unique portrait of the seminal rock band who crafted three albums now considered to be pop masterpieces. Never experiencing popular success in their time—even today, they're most widely known for their song "In the Street," heard on television's That '70s Show—Big Star has been cited as an influence by artists including REM, The Replacements, and Wilco. The film traces the history of the band from then-teenage singer Alex Chilton's stardom with The Box Tops in the Sixties, through the tumultuous recording of the group's landmark albums, and each band member's subsequent struggles to define themselves after the band's demise. Weaving never-before-seen footage and photos of the band together with in-depth interviews, director Drew DeNicola has created a unique portrait of four incredibly talented musicians who fell victim to the corporate stranglehold that the major record labels and radio stations held over the music industry. Most triumphantly, Big Star also documents the resurrection of the band by passionate musicians and music journalists, who discovered their music in later years, and came to treasure it as, in the words of singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, "a letter that got lost in the mail."
Twenty Feet From Stardom When you're singing along with the chorus of your favorite song, do you really know who you're singing with? Veteran filmmaker Morgan Neville does, and his new film tracks the astounding careers, contributions, and sacrifices of pop music's most recognizable yet least known artists—the backup singers. Twenty Feet from Stardom focuses primarily on four singers—Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, and Judith Hill—charting the rise of the modern pop vocal sound from its origins in the gospel tradition, through the demand for new, more impassioned sounds during the turbulent '60s, and into their declining options in the modern recording era. Over his prolific career, Neville has profiled musicians ranging from Johnny Cash to The Rolling Stones, and uses his connections to access a vault's worth of archival footage. Twenty Feet from Stardom boasts a wealth of celebrity interviews, including Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, and others. But this time the superstars take a backseat to the backup singers, recalling some of these ladies' most legendary recording sessions. Trust us—you'll never hear "Gimme Shelter" the same way once you've seen Jagger and Clayton describe the night she sang that song.
It may not be pretty, but it's somehow fitting that The Office should end this way: humbled, overlooked, and, increasingly, unloved. No one was paying much attention when the series debuted in 2005 and, in retrospect, it's easy to see why. It was a prickly, initially slavish adaptation of a culty British comedy, shot in a jarring, shaky-camera style that appeared more suitable for Cops or a drunk uncle's home movies than Must See TV. NBC thought so little of it that only six episodes were ordered and then promptly dumped in the midseason swamps of late March. The pilot featured a cast of relative unknowns ventriloquizing Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's cringe-inducing dialogue and, when subsequent episodes lost half the audience, the show's prospects seemed thinner than Steve Carell's pre–movie star hair. It was a fluke box office smashthat kept it alive; it was a network-wide dearth of better options that eventually made it a hit.
So there's some symmetry in the fact that after eight years, four Emmys, three regional managers, and an untold number of parties in the conference room, The Office's farewell feels more like an afterthought than an event. In the two seasons since Carell departed, the show has shed both viewers and purpose at an alarming rate, like one of Angela's beloved cats on a hot summer day. NBC is rightfully devoting two hours of prime time to the finale tomorrow night, but all of the network brass will be busy partying and praying in Manhattan, hoping that at least one of the half-dozen new sitcoms unveiled during upfronts this week will break through.1 And among comedy nerds, all but the most devoted Scrantonites are already looking ahead to May 26 and the return of Arrested Development, a show far more beloved in death than it ever was in life. It's a rough lesson worthy of a Northeastern Pennsylvania winter and one written in the DNA of The Office's collection of wacky sad sacks and dippy drones: that attention and appreciation are only given to the new or the too-soon-departed. There's financial reward but precious little glory in putting in the work for the long haul. On TV, surviving just means you haven't yet had a chance to be missed.
Today's Photo:
See lots of movies, but don't spend all your time indoors.
Summer is coming.
William James on Habit “Recollect,” (James) wrote, “that only when habits of order are formed can we advance to really interesting fields of action — and consequently accumulate grain on grain of wilful choice like a very miser — never forgetting how one link dropped undoes an indefinite number.” The importance of forming such “habits of order” later became one of James’s great subjects as a psychologist.
The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my hearers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right.
(I should be clear. It wasn't a surprise to Jen. Just to me.)
Baby showers are for girls only. This is still probably true. But I was told to come to the event this afternoon. I was told 20 minutes before it started. The party was very inclusive (and it was very well attended). I'm glad there were no party games and it's always great to get the staff together. But as soon as the baby presents started getting unwrapped, every Y chromosome left within 15 minutes.
Of all the days to get up early to try to sneak in a run. I had planned on taking a long, satisfying nap this afternoon. A party (shower) with a bunch of colleagues, food and drinks is one of the few good reasons to skip that nap.
If you've ever held a Board Game Night, you know that every group of board game players has...let's call it a "limit." There are games that are just too advanced for some, and the key to having fun is picking a game that's complicated enough to be satisfying for veterans but simple enough for newcomers to pick up.
They're Teachers, Not Missionaries Critics often say that the concept of performance pay is “anti-teacher.” But teachers, like everyone else, have to pay rent and buy their kids’ braces, and they like to take a vacation now and then. To take the position that teachers shouldn’t be rewarded for excelling, that we should continue the status quo, is truly “anti-teacher.”
Why would you ever raise your kid to be a Leafs fan?
It teaches you how to lose. There isn't a Toronto fan under the age of 50 who knows what it's like to end a season happily. This isn't a bad thing: they can shrug off losses that would cripple a more successful fan base. Leafs fan were prepared to make the playoffs for the first time in nine years, only to get pummeled by a divisional and historical rival with a recent Cup. (Why always them, why never us?) Leafs fans could even have survived an unlikely comeback from 3-1 down, only to come up short in a Game 7 in the opponents' building. (We weren't suppose to come this far anyway.)
It is done. I ran a half-marathon, front-to-back, without having to stop to walk. I did have to stop to shit, though. Here's a Spotify playlist that helped me through it.
"Degausser," Brand New
Usually, I can power through an impending poop. Whether I'm driving or in an unfamiliar place—like, not my own bathroom—I can just hold on to the poop and wait it out. Somewhere around mile eight, however, it became urgently clear that this poop would not be waited out. This poop was coming whether I jumped in the woods, managed to find an empty porta-potty or found one of the stores we were running past was actually open and I could shit like a civilized human being with toilet paper and a door with an actual doorknob.
"Catamaran," Bear vs. Shark
It was a prominently situated Dunkin' Donuts. It sat alone, amid the strip malls, on Jericho Turnpike, half of which was shut down for the race. It was no surprise, then, that many of the roadside establishments—7-11, gas stations, etc—were closed. I learned that the hard way when I finally gave in to the inevitability of this poop and found the 7-11 closed. Have you ever resigned yourself to a poop and then not been able to poop because of outside influences? It is a terrible feeling. Your whole world is rushing toward this one moment and then all of a sudden you have to jam on the brakes after you've made the decision to take this road. It's why excessive nudity scares me. Clothes are the last line your body has between not shitting and shitting. I feel like if your brain knows you are wearing pants, it will try its damnedest not to shit them. No pants? There is nothing to stop what your body is doing; you've made the decision to strip away the final layer of protection.
