Feb

28

Sharon McGowan.

Filed Under GLBT, Law, Personal | Leave a Comment

SODA had the pleasure of bringing Sharon McGowan, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian & Gay Rights Project, to Idaho to speak yesterday. And it was a lovely time. Sharon was able to more than make up for the absence of our second speaker–Shannon Minter, who was unable to attend due to the unexpected effects of oral surgery–and entertain and inform the twenty-five or so attendees for the two hours allotted with no more than four breaths. Remarkable, really.

Because I had been rather ill the prior weekend, and was still feeling its effects, it wasn’t until later that evening, after imbibing a few glasses of wine, that I really felt up to being sociable and truly enjoyed the event. But even in my puzzled, chest-coldy state, the experience more than made up for the laughably bad “interview” process I underwent on Saturday and Sunday by The Daily Evergreen’s Emily Luty that resulted in this atrocious article.

Feb

28

Sarah Silverman.

Filed Under Humor | Leave a Comment

“Though an opening monologue that ended, ‘And then Jack Nicholson raped me’ would be pretty funny.”

[From Fametracker.]

Feb

28

Birthday giggles.

Filed Under Humor | Leave a Comment

Ye gods. A woman in North Dakota gave me the best birthday present I could have received. Even if she didn’t do it for me. And I didn’t find out about it until just now, several weeks after the fact. What was her gift? She went to a police station to purchase $3 worth of marijuana. And she wasn’t stoned at the time. Thank you!

[From This Is True.]

Feb

28

Vindication?

Filed Under Film | Leave a Comment

Why do I feel vindication when a professional film critic’s assessment of Maria Bello’s performance in A History of Violence, as well as her assessment of the film itself, mirrors my own so perfectly? Why do I feel burned when the same critic matches my slobbering tone with respect to Sharon Stone in Broken Flowers, but deems the balance of the film–which was one of my favorites from 2005–”otherwise forgettable?”

Feb

28

SmartFilter.

Filed Under Science & Technology | Leave a Comment

See the BoingBoing piece for an explanation. If you’re curious.

Feb

27

Section 3-419.

Filed Under Language, Law | Leave a Comment

The last sentence of Section 3-419(e) of the Uniform Commercial Code currently reads, “An accommodated party who pays the instrument has no right of recourse against, and is not entitled to contribution from, an accommodation party.” In the 2002 proposed revision to Article 3, the drafters changed the “who” to “that.” My theory as to why the drafters would move away from good grammar into the realm of bad grammar? Microsoft Word. Word’s “Grammar Check” is nortoriously and extraordinarily bad. But the specific problem I am focusing on at the moment is its tendency to replace “who” and “which” with “that,” regardless of context. Why does it do this? I suspect it is a misguided attempt to ensure sentences are technically correct more often. “The beach house who we knew as children…” is both aesthetically and technically wrong, whereas “the woman that we knew as children…” is not, as far as I know, a technical fault. But this practice, while it has certain positive features, makes my blood curdle. “That” has its place. But so does “who” and “which.” And those places are not limited to the beginning of the question ghetto. When referring to a person, as in the last sentence of the current Section 3-419, “who” is the most aesthetically pleasing and proper word choice.

Feb

26

Danish cartoons, revisited.

Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment

I earlier wrote about the Danish cartoon “controversy.” And I’m not sure I was particularly eloquent. So to see what I take to be a modified version of my position in a rather more polished form, read Doug Marlette’s “Them damn pictures.”

Feb

25

Netflix friends?

Filed Under Film, Science & Technology | 1 Comment

Anyone who regularly reads Yodelling Llama also on Netflix? Want to link up, so I can see what you’re watching at home and how you’ve rated what you’ve watched, and vice versa? Add me to your friends. The email addy I use on the account is “yodellingllama,” then the “at” symbol, followed by “yahoo.com.”

Feb

22

Dubai Ports World.

Filed Under Politics | 1 Comment

Contrast the response of Village Voice writer James Ridgeway and Salon.com writer Andrew Leonard to the “scandal” involving Dubai Ports World’s purchase of the P&O, and its resulting inheritance of the contracts to operate six ports in the U.S. In the former, the focus is on the UAE itself, and how bad a country it is. In the latter, the focus in DPW as a company. Which is the more appropriate response? I tend toward the latter, because I don’t tend to think generalization about people based on accidentals like nationality is very nice. But it is ignorant to suppose that national origin never plays a role in a given person’s decisionmaking. To pick a reasonably noncontroversial example: a person is much more likely to cause pretty explosions on July 4th if he is a U.S. citizen than if he is not. Is it an example of the bad kind of discrimination to target people with U.S. passports when searching for explosives in late June? Maybe so. Maybe profiling based upon certain characteristics is never appropriate. Which would make the negative response to DPW’s retention of the port contracts itself in poor taste. Let’s leave it at that.

Feb

21

Gunn.

Filed Under Film | 1 Comment

Borrowed Tromeo and Juliet from Jeff. Pretty good. That kind of trashy is not exactly my kind of thing, but there were some very funny moments there.

But what I didn’t expect is to see Sean Gunn on the screen. I am a huge “Gilmore Girls” fan, and Kirk is one of my favorite characters. And there he was, playing some low level Capulet. What’s more amazing than that? One of the writers is Sean Gunn’s brother. And he’s actually turned into something of a big deal, writing the recent Dawn of the Dead remake and directing the hotly anticipated comedy-zombie film Slither, which is set to be released at the end of March. And he seems to have been involved with Scooby-Doo films, but I won’t hold that against him.

One thing he did during the early aughts was a film called The Specials. Which was described, more-or-less, as a what Mystery Men would have been if it had been good. Which is right up my alley. Unfortunately, Netflix does not stock it. Because it’s only been released to DVD in Canada or something.

So anyway, the Gunn family’s involvement with Troma, combined with the Trey Parker-Matt Stone connection, almost makes me want to borrow a few more Troma releases from Jeff. Almost.

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