Because the apocalypse *should* be funny...

A Boy and His Dog is my favorite movie. Not for the special effects (which are nonexistant); not for the random sex (though that is a nifty part); certainly not for the soundtrack (which desperately needs to be remastered). But because it is hilarious, campy, and everything a movie should be.

They played it at the Loft Theater tonight as part of their "Cult Classics" series. I tell you, seeing this movie on the big screen was one of the most wonderful cinematic experiences of my life. I was afraid that it would lose some of its punch - after all, I've watched it enough times that I know the jokes, including the big one at the end, backwards and forwards. There's something about experiencing these jokes with an audience, much of which has clearly never seen the flick, that made me relive the first time I ever saw the movie - only this time, I'm not 12 and I get it even better. The moment at the end when everything just comes together so perfectly, so twisted...when the audience falls silent for half a second then breaks into hysterical laughter...

But I won't spoil it for you.

I think part of the reason I love this movie so much is that it was one of the defining moments of my childhood. It was one of my dad's favorites, and he was overjoyed to find an old VHS copy for sale at our local drugstore/video rental place. But he wouldn't let me watch it. I was too young; I wouldn't get it; I'd have to have it explained and that would ruin it for me later. (I was probably 8 or 9. It probably says something about the way I was raised that my parents were not remotely concerned that I might see graphic violence and serious full nudity, but rather that I wouldn't get a joke.) So I waited. And one day, I asked if I was old enough to watch it...and my parents said yes. This was a milestone more profound than middle school graduation, more important than learning to drive. It meant I was finally my parents' intellectual equal (or close enough), able to comprehend on an adult level. It seems like such a small thing now, with 15 years' distance and a life that rivals this movie in sheer oddness (though, thankfully, not in plotline). But it was a big deal at the time, and a feeling that I have carried with me since that day.

Watch the film (if you can find it). It's a good one.

AUDGEY DOES A HAPPY DANCE!!!!

YAY CALIFORNIA!

See this as well: The Official Opinion from the California Supreme Court.
For all those legally-minded individuals out there.

Random humor

This is about the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Even if they did steal the joke from Nukees.

Young people are AWESOME.

http://www.dayofsilence.org/

Yay to all the students & so forth being active & taking part in nifty events & peaceful protests! Tell your friends! (Or don't. Tolerance works both ways, yo. But my own position within a larger Community insists that I think such things are rockin' cool and spread the love. LGBT-etc-folk take waaaay to much shit in this great nation of ours, sez I.)

Yay future!

I would like to make an announcement:
I will be attending University of Arizona Rogers College of Law in the fall. Go me!
That is all.

Yet again, being cheap pays off

Ok, so we went to play Halo 3 on XBox Live today. Yay, Halo. Well, we never bought the $10 Heroic Map Pack on the grounds that we already payed $60 for the game, which was pretty awesome; why should we pay extra for 3 maps we really didn't need?
Well, so we go to sign on today to go beat up on prepubescent children, and to our extreme annoyance, we found we could not enter Big Team Slayer because we didn't have the correct maps.
Fuck, we thought. Stupid Microsoft. Making us buy the map pack in order to play.
So fine. We're adults; we're used to getting screwed by the system. So we went to go pay the stupid $10 for the stupid map pack.
Download...Free, said XBox Live.
Sweet! Knew there was no reason to buy that thing in the first place. Wait long enough, good things come to you for free.
That's how we got our living room lamp, our 3rd TV, most of our furniture...

Volcanopele, upon finding out he had purchased the map pack for nothing, proceeded to swear in an annoyed fashion. Fenner (the cat) started licking his head.

Who needs the candy store?

I made nougat using this recipe:
http://www.candymaking.net/Nougat.html
It was really easy. My mom would never allow me to cook candy when I was younger; she figured I'd mess up the kitchen and come out with a sticky mess. The one time I tried to cook candy in her kitchen, that's exactly what happened. It wasn't until years later that I figured out why I couldn't cook candy in my mother's kitchen, and why she had never successfully cooked candy either:
YOU NEED A CANDY THERMOMETER.
Duh. So now I can cook candy. It's remarkably simple; you just do what the recipe says and take it off the heat at the right moment.
I love cooking candy. Some recipes you read through and you can imagine exactly how the food will turn out. Not so with candy. These recipes you read through and think, "How in the world will that mess turn into the candy we know and love?" But it does. Egg whites turn into froth; syrup turns into sticky solid stuff; put them together and it turns white and becomes nougat. Amazing.