Friday, February 26, 2010

DOCUMENTARIES

This is from tumblr, but spent more than 30 seconds writing it so I am putting it here too ok!

nerd documentaries (that I have seen [in kind of order from favorite to awful]):

  • Wordplay - CROSSWORD PUZZLES/tournaments. This is really rad and it has Cake and They Might Be Giants songs in it also Jon Stewart and Tyler Hinman the really young crossword genius kid wears a Trogdor shirt at the tournament and Will Shortz is a neat man and all the people the documentary crew follows are cool except for one of them who is a really kind of pathetic woman who reminds me a lot of my old English teacher. Also Merl Reagle. And Bill Clinton makes a cameo, and I find his hands really attractive? In a non-weird way.

  • Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns - THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS! I don't think this is an actually good documentary from a layperson standpoint but for super fans of the band it is kind of heaven. Otherwise, I feel like it just comes off as creepy and pretentious and I don't like to see Sarah Vowell speak, or Syd Straw. There're a lot of full and partial live songs in the documentary itself and also a ridiculous amount of bonus features which is great. And the documentary's commentary track is wonderful but I wish Sarah Vowell would really just shut up!

  • Helvetica - HELVETICA. I love typefaces and Helvetica is a good one in my opinion. Some of the people they interview have very interesting and insightful things to say and some equate Helvetica to George Bush or something. But the designers who aren't wackos are pretty fascinating and made me think a lot about the purpose of typography and how Helvetica became the kind of paragon or zenith- zeitgeist!!!!! of stuff and the complete 180 design and type made around that time (think the frills and curls of 50's ads, the Coca-Cola logo, example, whatever-- to the American Airlines logo which was designed in Helvetica in 1967 and is still the exact same today and is as sleek and modern as ever).

  • Spellbound - SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE. Does this sound like a musical robot? I love following spelling bees, but I never participated in any other than the basic school-type level; I purposefully misspelled words because I hate attention and those kind of things make me so nervous and awful awful awful. But in 8th grade my friend Sarah won the local and regional things and went to Washington DC and I saw her on ESPN and she spelled facade right and a bunch of other words but missed basenji, a kind of dog that doesn't bark, she spelled it basengee, but she placed 30-somethingth, and it was very exciting. Nerdy kids make me very happy, though some of the ones the crew follows, and a lot of spelling bee kids in general, are unsettlingly dedicated and so socially screwed up it's kind of sad and then there's Harry Altman.


  • The awful ones:


  • The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - COMPETITIVE DONKEY KONG PLAYING... I just thought this was pathetic. It all seemed so sad and desperate. There are a lot of disputed facts surrounding the whole competition and the documentary lies about/omits important details. You've got a good bad guy in Billy Mitchell though, creepy long haired guy who sells his own brand of hot sauce and is a big jerk to everyone. And his challenger, opponent, down on his luck honest man father husband good guy kind of rookie Steve Wiebe. I don't know, his story was so sad and pathetic and pitiful, it was weird to watch and depressing. He doesn't get a higher score than Billy Mitchell during the tournament and WOE WOE WOE. Then he beats it in his garage by himself later. All star in everyone's hearts true champion real hero fair fighter. Blehgh.

  • Word Wars - SCRABBLE. This documentary is gross. Most of the people are gross and weird and creepy. There's a black guy who swears all the time but also talks to kids in a classroom about words or something. There's this weird wiry/wired guy who takes a million vitamin supplements and who wears really old shirts that are so torn up they're basically rags, and he's very negative. There is an old unsettling bald guy who talks about his chi and does yoga or whatever the heck it is and balance and forces and energies. There is a bald, frail, fragile, rodent-esque man who has acid reflux who spits up stomach bile into a cloth all the time and hacks and makes a lot of bad noises. It felt like he could throw up or die at any moment. Those were all the people the documentary followed, and they were all too creepy and flawed to root for. I forgot who won the tournament.
  • Tuesday, February 9, 2010

    can we achieve to destroy by starving it

    on john green and unicorns

    raocow twitter

    "einstein watermelon on a toilet"

    "phyllis, this is a spoon"

    big big big big big big big fake

    blood alone moves the wheels of hystory

    hysterical things to say

    site:blogspot.com "horse pooping" photo

    i can do cartwheels for a mile

    rachael ray skydiving deal with valerie

    imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia

    "i don't do anything ever"

    "who's your little whosit?"

    john green paper towns nerds catfish

    a small yet hysterical egg

    animated claw marks

    chapstick counterproductive

    eyeitches inside wats the reason

    flansburgh how pathetic our situation

    i hate john green

    late late show destroyed by bob barker

    mario incandenzas police lock

    sentence of destroyed

    they'll need a crane john linnell crying

    what happens if i put hashtags in the 4chan name box with exclamation points

    "full to the brim of vitamin b"

    a big sentence
    Blog about self-sacrificial tuna sandwich and my personal martyrdom. Can't get it worked out the way I want to; sandwich choice saved this dang planet and no one even thanked me.

    Monday, February 1, 2010

    A DREAM A DREAM

    I was at my college, in an English class that I never did the work for and always was ridiculously worried about going to, since I never did the work and sometimes completely forgot about the class until it was going, frequently just skipping class because I didn't remember. It was in a room like my old Bible classroom in high school. Sam and Ashleigh, two people who graduated the year before me in high school in real life, were in the class too, and Ashleigh was sitting to my left and Sam to my right. I don't remember how he came in or was introduced or anything, but then John Flansburgh is there, like he's scouting for a college kid to do a thing, he asks Ashleigh a kind of trivia question about who he is, if she knows who he is. She gets it right and says something about They Might Be Giants, but obviously isn't very familiar with the band. Flans asks the class in general, something like "Okay yes we are TMBG, but more specifically, we are known for one thing, kind of our hallmark." And I'm really confused for a second, and then say Flood; I was a little confused/wondering why he reduced the band to just that or asked that as a question, like out of all the stuff they'd done, he asks that as if it's all they're known for, or something. He smiles, tells me to stand up, and starts asking a few other questions, doing this thing where he stands right right in front of me, really playfully, like I can't even really move because maybe he's stood on the tips of my shoes with the heels of his, and it's fun and funny and just a really playful thing, like something you'd do if you were flirting with someone, only he's not, but it's the same kind of feeling of the whole thing and my face is pretty much in his back and I laugh and keep trying to step backwards to get more balanced or whatever and WHATEVER, he asks me a few more questions, maybe, and then says that he'd like me to come with them and be a/the contestant on Stump the Band (which is an actual segment of the show they used to do, but was completely different from this thing that they are asking me to do, before it was they took requests from the audience for any kind of song, and they'd try to play it, but in my dream it was some kind of thing where they asked ME questions, maybe about the band, maybe about something else, in my dream I never knew exactly what it was I was going to do, but it didn't bother me at all, in the dream, which is weird because normally I'd be a complete wreck if I didn't know). So I go/Flans leads me?to/through a bunch of parts of the college, this really complex trip of endless hallways and narrow corridors. At some part we were in an art supply store, I think, just browsing around, and Linnell was looking for some stuff for Henry, and I told him about this other store, a Pat Catans, that was really good for finding everything you need all at once, and cheaply priced, and was well organized (which is true, it's really a cool store and I got some of my drawing supplies there). We keep going through all these different places until we stop in some open room thing. Linnell and Dan are there now, just them, Linnell's the one that's been leading me around. He smiles and says "Bet you didn't know all this was at your school." And I laugh and say no, I had no idea these rooms/buildings existed, because it's clear that we've been walking for a while and through all these places. I see Danny Weinkauf through a window, in another room, and say something about how he was in my class and how cool he is and etc (my literal actual mind always gets confused or forgets stuff in dreams, and as a result, past dream actions get muddied or mixed up later on, so now instead of Flans being the one there, it's Danny. I actually remember, a little later in the dream, that I got it wrong in my dream, that it was Flans not Danny, like my mind's aware that it made a mistake and it kind of manifests itself and I get worried in the dream that I said that to Danny if he wasn't really there, but at the same time I think, in my dream, "hahaha my brain forgot what happened earlier in the dream" and it's really meta and confusing and I'm getting confused right now typing this so). I go with Linnell and Dan, Linnell is the leader now, we walk some more and talk about things and it's really casual and non-thing-like. We get into a car; Linnell drives, I sit next to him up front, and Dan sits in the back. I'm really excited but at the same time it's super casual and like it's cool and I'm not freaked out like I would be. At one point the car is now a plane in a similar my-brain-forgetting-what's-going-on-in-the-dream thing. Some time during I twitter and say JOHN LINNELL'S ARM IS TOUCHING MY ARM and it is because the car/plane is small and but I'm not freaked out or excited, even, very much, just super happy, (and I am taunting Blaze, with the tweet) and it's a weird and cool vibe. We are flying to their next show, we fly past the Q in Cleveland, don't think it was actually in Cleveland in my dream, and Flans, who is suddenly in the car/plane/in my dream again for just this sentence, says some funny thing about how hah! the place they played at the Q last week and tonight's show is at a bigger place. Which sounds cocky and dumb but it was just funny and whatever in the dream. I talk with Linnell a lot while he flies, he says a bunch of stuff about Henry that I can't remember, but I think he was into art, painting and drawing. He keeps making references to Ohio State and me "putting on the crimson"/"crimson pride" which I actually don't know if that's a phrase or the color of OSU really, even. At some time we are there, or somewhere that is not in a plane/car, and Flansburgh gives me a little paper with instructions of what to do. The first point says to just dress (for the Stump the Band thing, in my dream I'm still not sure what it is that is, but another point on the list is that Danny or Flans, I have a hard time telling them apart in this dream?will explain what I need to do/what it is) the way they suggest and not make a big deal about it because it just has to be that way. I'm instructed to wear "a red suit, a My Bloody Valentine shirt, and jeans." Confused how I'm supposed to wear a suit and jeans but guess they just meant a suit jacket. In reality I have no idea who My Bloody Valentine is other than that they are a band. In the dream I don't know either and think it's weird. Then I woke up.