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July 31, 2005
Today's Moment of Despair for the Future of Humanity*
On Friday, I went to Joann Fabrics to buy thread, and, unfortunately due to what happened next, had enough time to kill that I wandered into the home decor section. Nestled amidst the ranks of dried flowers, acrylic Fiesta-esqueWare, and wrought iron-look umbrella stands on sale for $9.99 was this: the Comfy Candle Warmer. I walked by all three locations where it was proudly on display (Halloween decorations, candle aisle, clearance endcap) before the question "Why would you need to warm a candle anyway?" drifted through my brain, and I went closer to investigate. The text on the package quickly gave me my answer:
"warms candles to release
their scent without burning"
It is like a poem, a terrible poem of modern decay. I'm not sure I'm up to the task of articulating why the Comfy Candle Warmer fills me with horror. But: you buy a scented candle, a thing that by its very nature is meant to be burnt, and then...you buy something that saves you from burning it? I don't understand. You're afraid of fire? Want to preserve the candle for eternity (has anyone actually ever burned a scented candle all the way anyway)? You don't know about potpurri? What? Help!
The Comfy Candle Warmer opened my eyes to a subterranean scented-candle cult that I never ever wanted to know about. They are apparently making wickless candles now, to be used with your Comfy Candle Warmer or one of a thousand other variations. Wickless...candles. These candle freaks are now taking liberties with words, my words and yours. WICKLESS CANDLE. Pfah!
I slept poorly last night, knowing that They were out there, gently and, we presume, comfily warming but not burning candles, and things called candles. I'm not sure I will ever rest again.
*Which I would announce as a regular feature except come on, "regular?" You know me better than that.
Posted by hilatron at 01:11 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
July 28, 2005
Plotz, Plotz, Move, Move, Oh...Crap.
Hello!! Do you know what it is? It is almost August! August, among its many other qualities, like being hot, and being the month that you would simultaneously really settle into summer vacation and also begin to realize that it was getting close to over, is, this year, the last month before we move. FOUR WEEKS. FOUR WEEKS TILL THE MOVE. I will now proceed to get the vapors.
I am not a good mover, although I am an excellent moving assistant. People never believe this because of how generally inactive and cranky I am, but you totally want me on your team when you are moving. I will go up and down the stairs 3,000 times, without, uncharacteristically, a single peep of complaint. I will carry all the boxes you give me. I will think bruises are marks of honor. In the late afternoon, when everyone is sitting on the back of the truck, legs dangling off the edge, stupid and slow with tiredness, contemplating the rest of the junk that needs hauling with grim horror, I am the one who will jump up and get a second wind and just dash it all inside like it was nothing. There are not too many things I will unreservedly crow about, but my skill as a moving helper is undeniable.
Asked to move my own house, however, I fall apart. I hate the tick-tock sense of impending doom, and the increasing feeling that my precious nest is endangered. I hate how good I am at imagining all my stuff stolen, broken, smashed on the street, not fitting in the new house, accidentally left behind, wrinkled, bent when it said "Do Not Bend," entirely disrespected.
I hate packing. I hate being reminded of what a fucking moron I am for keeping all this crap, as it all tumbles out of its closets and drawers and other hidey holes. I hate that even so, I won't get rid of most of it. I hate how you can pack so many boxes that you can't get into the bedroom, and make nary a dent in the things remaining to be packed. I hate the things that are always left over in the end, fated to be packed into 500 boxes marked "Living Room - MISC." and "??????!," and how one of those boxes will always contain that one thing you need to make breakfast the morning after the move. I hate all those things that you don't see at all until you think you've packed everything and then suddenly there are 5,000 extension cords, there is the fan, there is the curtain rod, these are not part of the house and we will have to pack them too. I hate doing the dirty laundry/clean sheets/things we'll need right away juggling act.
I hate worrying about whether it will all fit in the truck. I hate worrying about whether the truck will fit down the street or whether there will be a place to park the truck. I hate renting the truck, driving the truck (not that I usually do), riding in the truck, and creating unlikely scenarios in which the truck is blown up and we have to buy U-Haul a new truck.
I hate the loading and carrying that I am so good at when it's other people's stuff, just because by that point I have worn myself out with outlandish concerns and ridiculous, last-minute packing.
Last night I realized that, what with work and some scheduled activities coming up, there are a total of six unobligated days between now and Moving Week. SIX DAYS. THERE ARE SIX PACKING DAYS TILL THE MOVE.
Posted by hilatron at 09:29 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 25, 2005
I was not warned
Nobody told me that today was Clinical Crisis Monday, which is too bad because now here I am at work, without so much as a girded loin to protect me. Ow!
I have, however, snuck away long enough to post a new review at Sofa Gothic, and to have a totally miraculous customer service experience with UPS. I guess I shouldn't count my package before it arrives, but in five minutes I went from trying to figure out bus routes to Watertown to being pretty confident that I will actually receive my goods at a time and location that are convenient to me. Consider my flabber gasted!
Posted by hilatron at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 21, 2005
Please Acknowledge My Dismay
I am currently, inextricably riveted by Complaints.com (which you can browse here, although it is somewhat cumbersome - should I complain?)
I came for the corporate dirt, but stayed for the naked, screaming psychology. Despite the asshole clerks and the genuine tragedies, most of the tales of woe come across as so trivial: a tiny event magnified by annoyance and refracted through the telling, the retelling, the commercial ass-covering and the feeling that This Should Not Happen to Me. I would be horrified by the human race if it weren't for all the times that a small part of me stood aside, coughing with embarrassment, watching the rest of me devolve in the exact same fashion as all the people who ended up here, on a mission to save the world with bad grammar, righteous indignation, and all-caps tattling. I feel like a Doctor of Vexology, sifting through the evidence and writing my report on the bitching customs of yore. I am only in July of 2000, and already there are so many favorites:
Some seriously high expectations of what Amtrak provides by way of services, along with a seeming inability to read itineraries before embarking, proved to be this person's downfall.
Not just annoyed, but terrified to lose out on this sale price. Who is the stroller for, anyway? Is Rosemary's Baby going to be mad at you?
This person seems to be a victim of malicious receipt elves. Now that is something to complain about!
This will surely stand in history as the best misuse of slang, ever.
I just really like/am horrified by the phrase "hair object."
The third sentence of this complaint indicates that a leaking window is the least of this woman's problems.
O...kay. I... How did...? What made you think this would work?
Lastly, two different tragic portraits of not understanding credit, finances in general, or the basic fact that, yes, they are out to get you, of course.
Posted by hilatron at 04:08 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
July 20, 2005
I'm not sure this is physically possible, but I suspect that I have had low-level walking heat stroke for the last three days. What is the weather like where you are? Here, it is hot. The kind of wet, humid, relentless hot that is like a personal insult: you are inside, maybe trying to figure out how little clothing you can wear to work today without getting fired, and you think it is hot. Then you step outside and learn that you knew nothing about hot. You become three inches shorter and five pounds heavier, smashed into submission by the hot hot hot. Your joints ache, you smell bad, your hair looks like crap, and by three in the afternoon, when the sun comes around to your side of the building, the air conditioning is just a waste of time. Even if you are normally pretty good at shirking your duties, you reach new records in this weather, because the horrible sticky breathless blah drives all thought of anything beyond popsicles, fan placement and breathable cotton weaves right out of your sluggish mind.
In Boston, it is supposed to be like this for two more days after today. If you do not hear from me, please send a rescue dog with ice and clean tank tops.
Posted by hilatron at 10:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 16, 2005
Hamlet: answered
I am running around like crazy (well, right this second I am sitting on the couch, bleary, drinking ice tea and playing mental Crap Tetris with the living room furniture, but you get the idea) getting ready for the party tonight. I have made a cake that you all want to marry and for which I should get some sort of medal. But what I really wanted to do was present you with today's thing to make fun of:
Oh ha ha ha ha ha. I love it when people decide to Improve The Language. It is so futile and so great! Like deciding to improve the continental plates with a hammer!
I know what they're getting at, and they make some good points about the way we perceive the world, but those suggested replacements for "to be," ouch. I can't stand for it. Plus: "Looking at our next pair, 'John is lethargic and unhappy' vs. 'John is bright and cheerful,' we see again how medieval software creates metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions."
He says that like it's a bad thing. In my opinion, metaphysical puzzles and imaginary contradictions are some of the best things language has given us. That and the word "ganache" and the ability to transfer the information that allows one to make the beautiful deadly cake topping it represents.
Posted by hilatron at 09:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 13, 2005
Safe journey, space fans
Best wishes and safe travels to the crew of the shuttle Discovery, which is as of now on schedule for launch at 3:51 today. I realize that I am usually pretty cranky and skeptical about the world in general, but there is something particularly fragile and crazy and heroic about hurling yourself up out of the safety of the atmosphere at the head of an explosion, in a vessel that seems so flimsy out there in the universe even though it is the strongest and best thing you know how to build, just because someone figured out how to do it and so someone else ought to. I don't see how you can't have at least a little awe about that.
Edit: oh well, never mind.
Posted by hilatron at 11:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 09, 2005
Announcing:
Sofa Gothic, current home to a few reviews that you've read before and one new one. Future home of my film-related ramblings yet to come. Thanks for everyone's help with the name thing.
Posted by hilatron at 02:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 05, 2005
Help!
So, I really have a bee in my bonnet about this movie blog thing, it turns out. However, I am having a hell of a time deciding on a name. My companions for 4th-of-July fun yesterday were kind enough to indulge in some brainstorming, and then I've done some more this morning instead of, you know, working, and I have a bunch of ideas which I am totally unable to settle on one of. So, if I may request still further indulgence, I present a list here, and I ask you to either vote on your favorite, or say: "Silly robot. None of those are quite right. Here is the perfect name for you, which I have thought of!" and then I will give you cookies.
The site will consist of my usual lowbrow yet strangely picky reviews of horror, sci-fi, kung fu, cult, everything trashy and psychotronic - you know the drill. So the name should evoke that kind of thing. If that's possible. Here are the possibilities so far:
Back of the Vault Reviews
Bottom of the Vault Reviews
Gutter Popcorn, GutterCorn
The Gutter Snob
Don't Push That Button (this is an attempt to evoke the "Science gone TOO FAR!" theme of many B movies, with the button in this case being the Play button, except, maybe, my needing to explain this means this is not a good name? I just don't know anymore.)
The Scream Queen
The Screaming Screen
(I have briefly opened up the comments to all comers, since the Typekey thing seems to be acting up and, if you are kind enough to respond to this, you shouldn't have to wait around for gratification. Comments will be unmoderated until 8:00am tomorrow - after that, back to the approval system. Thanks!)
Posted by hilatron at 10:49 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack