Time to get back to our traditional, non-holiday editions of Battling the Current. I mean, can’t have “A very special..” episode all the time.
1) Nice to see that Howie Day got arrested again last week for drunken conduct on a plane. That’s pretty tame compared to his previous arrest in Milwaukee in which he a) locked a girl in the bathroom of his tour bus after she spurned his advances and b) broke said girl’s cell phone after she attempted to call for help. Can’t condone that type of behavior, cell phones are very important pieces of technology. (Can you type sarcastically? Just wondering.)
2) Like a lot of people I’ve spent the past few days traveling, which means I have another set of airport adventures to discuss. I knew that I had used up all my good karma when none of my Thanksgiving flights were delayed. So it didn’t surprise me when my plane was delayed for two hours in KC due to mechanical difficulties. What was my reading material for that flight? David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” because whenever you are trapped in a plane you really should be forced to read an article dissecting the various schools of American English usage.
3) Actually, for anyone interested it is a really good book with some of his most readable work ever. If you skip over some of the more esoteric material you still get his analysis on the Adult Film Awards, the Maine Lobster Festival, conservative talk radio, John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign and Tracey Austin. If you want to read something written by a certified genius check it out.
4) I’ve made my decision for my reading challenge for January. This year it is going to be “Books I’m Embarrassed to Say that I’ve Never Read” (driven by my failure on a Watership Down trivia question). Book #1: To Kill a Mockingbird. Book #2: The Red Badge of Courage. Book #3: Watership Down. Maybe not really a “challenge” but definitely an attempt to fill a gaping hole in my quasi-English major persona.
5) Did complete my Shakespeare challenge for the year. Polished off “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, which means that next year I will begin my quest to make it through all of the Henry plays. I think that I’ve read every comedy and they all begin to run together after a while. Lots of men dressing as women, women dressing as men, mistaken identities, twins, some good verbal banter, some incredibly lewd (I’m talking American Pie level) jokes, and the occasional character being eaten by a bear. (That last bit happens in “A Winter’s Tale” for no apparent reason that I can discern). Like I said, got to try to make myself appear to be an English major.
6) I hope that everyone is prepared for the new American Pie film that is going straight to DVD tomorrow. Starring absolutely no one from the original cast. Well, except for Eugene Levy because you know that the kids today love former SCTV standout Eugene Levy. This might be the strangest attempt to create a film franchise ever. It’s like making “The Breakfast Club 2” using the same library set but with only the janitor making a reappearance. Guess that is why it is going straight to DVD.
1 comment:
they can't make Breakfast Club 2 (or Ferris Bueller's Day Off 2) in the same high school because Maine North is now occupied/used by the Illinois State Police.
Here's a quick trivia question (not trying to stump you, you'll probably know it; it just popped into my head for some reason)-- what was the name of the janitor in The Breakfast Club?
as for my in-flight reading -- hmmm.... a book called "What Happy People Know" which was given to me by a friend as a stocking stuffer or reading more competitor 10-Q's.
from what i've read so far, the Happy book is just way too new-agey and doesn't really have much of a basis in science or psychology. reading financial statements is -- well, reading financial statements. can't do a real apples-to-apples comparison without making adjustments and using excel so its basically just reading footnotes and looking for presentation differences - but hey, at least it makes me look important. then again, if I were that big of a deal I wouldn't be flying coach now would I.
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