Exciting New Development On A Story You Weren't Informed About In The First Place!!!

Over the summer, new people moved into a house near us. (See lovely map below.) Construction began immediately on what appeared to be an entire additional house connected to the sprawling homestead they had just purchased. I'm not exaggerating at all. As a neighborhood off of the main road, we were clearly the prime location for parked work crew vehicles, construction equipment, quarry dump trucks (I don't know what half that shit was, I just know it was omnipresent and massive.) So that was fun, especially when the workers would eat their lunches and discard their chicken bones on the road for my dog to eat when we walked past. Let me tell you, there's nothing like sticking your hand halfway down a dog's throat to fish out a slimy chicken wing to finish a walk the right way. So thanks for that.

The construction has yet to cease, but they're valiantly not letting this fact affect their social life. One night, I returned to the house to see a 'valet parking' sign at the end of their driveway. "Hmm," I thought. "Interesting. I wonder where they're parking all the.... oh." As I began to turn onto my road, I saw. Both sides of our street were lined bumper to bumper with valet parked luxury sedans of varying absurd price, leaving a tiny conduit for me to carefully traverse to my house. The valets were zipping up and down in their little go-carts, shuttling the illustrious guests to the gala with nary a crystal-clad foot touching the dirty ground. Walking, after all, is for peons. We marveled at the sheer balls of the host’s decision to shanghai our private road for his personal use without even a note to give us a heads up, and briefly considered some sort of retaliatory action involving eggs and/or soap. We eventually just watched a movie or something. We’d make crappy revolutionaries.

A few weeks later, it was party time again. Several hours in, when our road was sufficiently clogged with cars, I called the police. Yeah, I did. Partly because if anyone who actually lived on the street had had the poor timing to have a heart attack or set their kitchen on fire, there would have been no possible way for an ambulance or fire truck to get through the narrow channel the valets had so thoughtfully left for us. I also called partly because I’d never called the cops on anyone before, and partly because I was feeling pissy and vindictive. I explained the situation, but I don’t know if it was ever followed up on. I don’t really know what I was expecting. Wait, yes I do. I wanted them to have to scramble to find parking for the cars, eventually allowing undersized twelve-year-old children to park the cars on their own front lawn, à la the film Father of the Bride. That’s what happened in my head, anyway. But imaginary retribution can only satisfy a girl for so long. For the next soirée, we have a plan of attack: as soon as we see the valet sign, we’re parking every car we have on the road, each approximately one car length apart. Our neighbors agreed to participate, and we have standing plans to invite people over for the additional vehicular volume and to eat popcorn while we relish the inevitable chaos. So for quite some time, that summed up our relationship with the Entitled Family – they use us as a parking lot, and we hate them with the fury of an endless procession of eternally burning suns.

AND NOW FOR THE EXCITING UPDATE!!!

A few days ago, there was a knock at our door. It was a woman bearing an apology for the parking shenanigans and an invitation to their holiday open house. And when I say ‘their,’ it’s because it’s a company party and this woman worked for the gracious host. I bet she didn’t know that glossing over her boss’s neighborly ineptitudes was included in her job description. Apparently, this guy part or mostly owns one of the most generically yet nefariously named corporations I’ve ever heard of. Seriously, I’m sort of mad that I won’t be able to use that name for an evil empire, should I ever obtain one. But anyway, I am so totally going, as are one of my sisters and my mom and some of our neighbors. It’s going to be awesome, I can just feel it.

FURTHER EXCITING UPDATE!!!

So I called to RSVP, naturally expecting to speak to the woman who had delivered our (shamefully last minute, according to Emily Post) invitation, because whatever evil plan she had botched to earn herself invitation delivery duty would surely also warrant RSVP duty. As it turns out, not so much. It was an RSVP hotline. 1-800-WeHaveTooManyFriendsToTakeTheirCallsPersonally. Wow. We’ve organized a small posse of neighbors to go, but we can’t decide if we should walk, or each drive separately and have our cars valet-parked on our street in front of our own houses and then be go-carted to the party. I think you know what I’ll be voting for.

Nerdy is Relative

I was informally challenged to make genetically-themed Christmas cookies to bring into the hospital tomorrow. Here's what I came up with...

This is an inheritance pattern for the dreaded green-sprinkle disease, which is recessive. Symptoms of the disease are pink frosting and deliciousness. As you can clearly see, the mother (top left) is an affected cookie, while her husband is a carrier. Should they choose to procreate, they would have a fifty percent chance of baking an affected cookie and a fifty percent chance of baking a carrier cookie. Knowledge is power.



Here we see a cookie afflicted with a spontaneous mutation causing him to be an albino. Note the characteristic red sprinkles.



Another cookie family. This example includes an unaffected mother and a carrier father, and their two cookie children.




You know I didn't stop at gingerbread man inheritance charts.

Noah video

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Jessie and Adam hold Noah for the first time

James and the Giant Beep

As anyone who is fortunate enough to have both my cell phone number and a basic grasp of our numerical system will tell you, it is not that hard to successfully press the series of digits that leads to me. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that it is also not hard to accidentally press my unique cell phone number. I get an inordinate number of wrong numbers, especially for a cell phone. A gentleman we’ll call ‘James’ – because that’s who everyone asks for when they call my phone looking for him – has a gaggle of easily confused, stubby-fingered friends who keep trekking through the ethereal net of telephone connections, making wrong turns at Albuquerque and ending up at my dial tone. Lucky me. During a recent bout of wrong numbers, I decided to conduct a little experiment in patience. No humans were harmed during the course of this experiment. Mildly annoyed and inconvenienced, yes. Hurt? Unfortunately, no.

One night, around 11.30, my phone rang. While this experience is ordinarily a joyous affirmation of my own popularity, this time something was different. My phone began beeping the particular sequence I’ve set to indicate that someone is calling me to talk to not me. I checked the display and sure enough, it was a number I’d never seen before. Great.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” a girl chirruped. “Is James there?”

“Sure, just let me find him.” Speakerphone: on. Mute: on. Phone on desk. This girl – let’s call her Janell, because I’ve never met a Janell I’ve liked – had someone else on three-way calling, which may skew the results of this study. She waited patiently for a while, chatting quietly with her pal about such erudite topics as ‘what James has done now’ and ‘whether or not this will work to gauge my lip piercing.’ I never found out what she was trying to use, and it haunts me to this day. I sat enthralled, and also watching TV and chatting online, so I use the term ‘enthralled’ rather loosely, for a full six minutes. After a brief discussion about ‘where the hell James was’ in which no clear conclusion was reached, they decided to give and then hang up.

“Surely,” I thought, “Janell will check the number, realize her mistake and redial correctly. And then my fun will be over.” I needn’t have worried. Pressing ‘send’ is way easier than pressing seven tiny, numbered buttons in the correct sequence. Janell and I shared the exact same greeting, and then it was speakerphone-mute-experiment time. This eavesdropping session was much more informative. Apparently, there was some sort of illicit love triangle action going on between Janell, James and, for the sake of pointless alliteration and capricious confusion, the gent on three-way I have dubbed Jamal. They continued their hushed, stilted conversation, no doubt wary of James picking up at any second. Fools. It seems that although Janell was currently involved with James, she was more interested in a liaison with young Jamal. The three-way call was the method they had chosen to confront the situation and make known the fervent desires of their young, lustful hearts. I was clearly standing in the way of true love with this experiment. Their raging libidos would only allow them a tense four-minute wait, and after Janell hung up, I have not heard from them since. So for all the hopeless romantics out there on pins and needles about Janell and Jamal’s future… I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sure they’ll end up happily ever after for at least a week or two.

A few nights later, I was given the chance to further my research. A gent we’ll call Samuel for reasons that will become clear later happened upon my number late one night. James is, apparently, nocturnal. Luckily for the boundless pursuit of scientific knowledge, so am I. He asked for the big J, and I proceeded with the same greeting as Janell to ensure scientific consistency. After an initial wait of four minutes, I sought the expertise of my sister scientist Laura. Samuel was staying on the line obligingly enough with nary a complaint, but boredom was beginning to set in on my end. I decided to add a new variable. ‘New variable’ being fancy-talk for ‘mashed a bunch of buttons to check for his response.’

“Hello? Hello? James?” Sam replied quickly, taking the beeps as a sign that James was indeed on the line. I beeped (bept?) indiscriminately.

“This is like talking to a computer,” he said. I beeped in response. “Was that a one or a zero?” he asked. “Are we talking in binary?” I beeped twice; clearly an attempt to convey my conviction that ‘binary’ was an awfully big word for someone who can’t press seven numbers in the correct order. Sam had a good laugh at the mere idea, I assume, of our half-beep, half-moron conversation. I beeped rapidly, several times in a row. He took this as an expression of sass.

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” he joked, making what I’m sure was an accidentally clever play on words. I beeped an SOS in Morse code, for lack of anything else to say. Sam laughed again. James had better hope that he’s never in a life or death situation where the only person he can contact is Sam and he is compromised in such a way that he cannot speak and must attempt to beep for help. God forbid, etc etc. ‘Cuz I totally blew any chance of that being at all effective. In any case, I have a feeling any call to Sam would be unavoidably doomed by dumb from the start.

Anyway, back at the ranch, Samuel had designated one beep to signify yes, while two beeps was a negative response. Sam was also clearly pissed at James – seriously, this guy must be a real ass – and was demanding an explanation of why they had not met up earlier that evening.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded. This was an unwelcome deviation from our yes/no question scheme that left me unable to respond accurately. I beeped three times, hoping he’d get confused and move on. It worked. “Do you want me to come over there?” Shut. Up. This kid was starting shit I could only have dreamed of starting – with me practically an innocent bystander. Okay, not at all innocent. But this? Was going to be awesome. Start it up.

BEEP.

“Because I have the car tonight. So I’ll come over.” I love this so much.

BEEP!

“Is Tyler over there?” Sure. Why not drag his ass into this?

BEEP.

“Okay. I’ll be over there in a little bit.” So trusting, this kid. Never disbelieved fake-James and his beeps for a second. I beeped a goodbye and we were parted by dead air. I felt pangs of disappointment. Would I find out how this charade I had set in motion would end? Only time would tell.

Thirty seconds worth of time, as it turned out. Sam called back to verify that James really wanted him over there. I beeped an affirmative and we were on our way. Again.

The next call from Sam evidently came from James’ front porch.

“Dude, let me in.”

BEEP BEEP. At this, Sam became quite irate, spouting all sorts of obscenities at James. Heh. Short fuse. There was a scuffle, and suddenly Sam was talking to some new people. He was inside and looking for James and Tyler. Sweet. Somehow, possibly with liberal amounts of help from yours truly, he got the impression that James and Tyler were hiding somewhere in the house. He stayed in the kitchen, though, trying to amaze whoever was in there with his beeping buddy. Predictably, no one was amazed. I could hear him rummaging around for a while, and then the phone went dead. Uh-oh.

He called back fifteen minutes later, but did not say anything when I picked up. After a few seconds’ silence, he beeped once, loud and angry, if I may presume emotion and intent from his beeping technique. I didn’t respond. No dice, buddy. I’m the beeper in this relationship. A few more seconds of silence were all he could take.

“Look, that was a really crappy joke to play.” He sounded really pissed.

“I don’t know why you would do that. It was really mean.” I stayed silent, an admission of guilt as much as an inability to express “you are an idiot who brought this upon yourself” through our simplistic communication structure. He hung up without another word. I guess we’re not friends anymore. But on the up side, I haven’t gotten any wrong numbers since the termination of this experiment.

IRRESPONSIBLY GENERALIZED RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT: The average (and this is a total guess on age) late-middle to early-high schooler tends to believe you when you tell them the person they want to talk to is coming to the line. These individuals are also extremely open to alternative forms of communication. They are dumb. I am mean. End of study.

The Very Model

Today, the impossible happened. On our walk, my dog Max was held up as the standard of excellence toward which all other dogs should strive. As we passed a woman walking a small black ball of fur, Max remained calmly by my side as the other dog exploded into a frenzy of yapping, straining at the end of his leash and nearly choking himself. "Why can't you be more like that dog?" she chastised her spasmodic oversized dust bunny. "Look how good he is!" Ha! Well played, Max. Well played.

He's come a long way from being the pride of his puppy kindergarten class who, upon receiving his Canine Good Citizenship award, promptly took a dump on the floor squarely in front of his teacher.

Dirty Weasels

Okay, I get the hint. I'll blog more, but let's start slowly. I don't want to sprain something.

The other day in a mentoring session my friend Lora and I lead, a group of students asked us over for some help with their skit. They were looking for ideas for a ridiculously absurd product that no one would want. Lora suggested non-alcoholic beer. Reasonable. What did I suggest, you ask? Well, I said the first thing that sprang to mind. Weasel Shampoo.

Yeah, I got called a weirdo. But that turned into the funniest damn skit out of the whole class.

Professor Insanity

I was going through my notes from last semester and I decided to make a list of things my professor said that were weird and/or funny enough for me to write down. No promises.

Biochem - I bet you didn't think biochemists were funny! Yeah, you were right.

"You don't have to remember this stuff. This is just me talking."

"Chlorophyll... more like BORE-ophyll!" (Whoops, sorry. That didn't come from that class.)

And there was one more about alcohol and a certain other professor but I'm guessing it was a 'you had to be there' joke and even though I was, it wasn't very funny.

Statistics - My prof was seriously crazy in love with stats. If it was a boy she'd totally marry it and have, like, a million of its babies. There should be a medication for this.

A speech that boiled down to "Babies will die if you don't learn statistics." It went on for upwards of twenty minutes and I didn't have the space to transcribe the entire thing.

"Do not use statistics to take over the world."

"We like just a bunch of dots."

"Remember that I danced today. This stuff is important."

Ethics - Taught by three profs, one of whom was a doctor with that weird doctor humor, one history professor who asked me to please let me allow some other people to answer but when I shut up, no one else talked at all so take THAT, and a woman who sat in the front of the room and just kind of wrote stuff down. Some sort of note-ninja.

"I'm just a humble whatever I am."

"We neglect our navels at our own peril."

"Yeah. He was a dope fiend."

"Wow, you're really exhilarated. What, did you just have a baby or something?"

"We could talk about mitochondria all day."


Yeah, I guess I thought there were more. I guess I make more fun in my head than I transcribe on paper. We could go into the crazy things VU profs said in class, but there's seriously not enough internet for that.

Seen on a webpage I frequent...

...and I DON'T think that's butterbeer, young lady.

Noch steckend es zum Mann

Sad that Christine was the first, I am the second, and we have YET to see a real, live blog entry from Ms. Tara regarding her expatriation. (I am not as brave as Christine, and have been chastened to the point where any further disclosure of Tara's last name will NOT come from me.) Anyway, in what I will pretend is a tribute to Christine's great blog but is actually flat-out idea theft I too have come up with a list of things that will remind me of Tara as she hookers it up in Germany...

gutting rental cars, DERifting off to sleep, staying up WAY too late, countless acts of nerdery including but not limited to the attendance of two concurrent midnight showings of HP4 as well as our subsequent 4 a.m. discussion thereof, that thing with the cactus that doesn't need to be brought up again, Dr. Mario, those awesome, awesome CC evaluations, font-matching on Mary's door, PENIS (and I shudder to think of the Google searches that little inclusion will bring me), watching that kid fall off the bike in While You Were Sleeping until I think we wore a hole through the video, Lois and Clark, shotgunning wine (never, ever a good idea no matter what Tara may say), the 'wind beneath my water wings/ do you know who you remind me of?' night, the noble interrobang, that monkey on the roof, "I'm what doctors call 'tired.'", Denny's, The Sims, Alisha's grandpa, the Gamer, Scarlett and how she copied me, and oh my God this list is quite long but last and certainly not least what do you have GOATS in there for?!

Fifteen Minutes (and Sixteen Hundred Words) of Fame

Our society is inordinately obsessed with celebrities. The trials and tribulations of Brad Pitt and the epic sluttery of Paris Hilton are, for one reason or another, more intriguing than crap like international relations and the government. These topics are in fact so boring that I probably lost a few readers just by mentioning them. Sorry. You can come back now… I promise not to talk about them again. I think I read somewhere that people like to read about the exploits of the rich and morally inept (judging!) as a sort of replacement for the tales of polytheistic hijinks of ancient Greece and Rome. Whether that’s true or not, that sentence has fleshed out this introductory paragraph quite nicely.

As I’ve never been to California, my celebrity exposure has been limited to occasionally clicking past one of the shamelessly numerous celebrity reality shows on VH1. Accidentally, of course. What follows is my personal, real-life experience with people of varying degrees of fame, presented in a hopefully humorous narrative for your amusement.

When I was seventeen, a certain famous magician came to my city, and my family and I went to a show. I won’t use his name because I fear retaliation for certain aspects of the show that I may or may not reveal. Aw, who’m I kidding? Of course I’ll write about them. For the purposes of this tale, I’m gonna come up with a nickname to ease my pronoun burden. He shares a name with a well-known Dickens novel, but we’ll call him Cavid. Cavid Dopperfield. Yeah, I think we’re on the same page here.

The show was progressing nicely. The objects were disappearing, the audience was oohing and aahing at all the appropriate points, the underwear swapping went off without a hitch - yeah, that was a weird trick – it was altogether a good show. Then came time for the Big Trick. The Show Stopper. Cavid was gonna disappear somethin’, and he was gonna disappear somethin’ BIG. An event of this magnitude calls for dramatic, theme-appropriate music, so the sound guy cued up Cher’s “Do You Believe In Life After Love?” Come on! I can think of at least five songs off the top of my head that have the word ‘magic’ in the title alone. Appalling lack of creativity, sound guy. Hey- I just did some research and it turns out Cavid was going through a nasty breakup with a certain supermodel around that time… so maybe I was just mocking his personal vindication theme song. Whoops. You go, girl. Stay strong. All you need is you.

In order to choose the lucky audience participants, we played musical beach balls: whoever was holding one when Cher stopped wailing got to be in the trick. Apparently they made some announcement about having to be eighteen years old to participate, but I, erm, didn’t hear that. Anyway, a million years later the song ended, my dad awesomely set me up to end with a ball, and I was told to head onstage. Obviously. This wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise. My quick thinking ensured my place in the trick – a magical lackey asked how old I was as I climbed the stairs, to which I suavely replied, “Sev-eighteen!” Smooth, Lis. Smooth.

Dopp had us all sit on some presumably magical bleachers behind him. He then asked my (and some other guy’s, an unimportant detail) name and gave us flashlights so we could waggle them like idiots to prove that we were still behind the curtain they then drew around all thirteen of us. After that, Dopp levitated us. We heard a low buzzing noise and then we were suddenly backstage, twenty minutes later!

No, that’s not what happened at all. Truth be told I am a little scared of some sort of Magicians’ Alliance coming after me. But really, what are they going to do? Pretend to cut me in half and then pull quarters from my ears? And Dopp is such a sham I feel this exposure is long overdue. Nothing you couldn’t figure out if you thought about it, keeping in mind the basics of physics, conservation of matter and being a total tool.

Where was I before my fear made me lie to you good people? Oh, yeah. So what’s-his-face and I are waving our flashlights stupidly while the curtain closes around us and our fellow ball-catchers. As soon as we are hidden from sight, two beings who I can only assume were magical ninjas come from behind us and begin herding us out the back of the stands into (gasp!) the big empty space behind the curtain-covered bleachers. They took over our flashlight-waggling duties while we all stumbled to an area backstage to watch a VHS tape of what the audience would see. Eventually the man himself (not to be confused with the Man) came back and we got to meet him. Woo.

Magicians have a certain mystique about them. For me, it’s the frustration of not knowing how they do their tricks. Now that was dead. Not that I really expected to be disappeared, but come on. Couldn’t we have incorporated a trap door or some strategically placed mirrors or something? That said, Cavid Dopperfield is quite tall and almost comically thin- like a shorter, normally proportioned person who has been taffy-pulled. He also sports a Swayze-esque mane of (probably dyed) hair that I’m sure is the envy of other magicians and clearly the pinnacle of Aquanet technology.
He inducted us into the Guild of Magic Trick Participants, in the ‘Shut the Hell Up’ chapter. I let my membership lapse within fifteen minutes of orientation, which must be some sort of record. We had our photos autographed like good little how’d-he-do-thats (anyone? anyone?) and were then ushered out to our confused, waiting families. Debunked magic trick and autographed photo in one night? Not bad, not bad at all.

NEXT! I saw Elijah Wood in London’s Heathrow airport on the way home from my semester in Cambridge. I’m guessing he was there for the London premiere of The Lord of the Rings, but I’ll never know for sure. I wish there was more to this story, but I only saw him for a second before the crowd shifted and he was lost to my view behind someone’s knees.

He’s very short is all I’m saying here.

Moving on. Much to the delight of many of my friends, I live near Reggie Miller. We’re practically neighbors and all but best friends. Er, were best friends. Until I flipped him off.

My sister Laura and I were leaving the neighborhood one night. As we came up on Reggie’s house, I noticed a car on the road. Ordinarily this in itself would not throw me. Cars frequently appear on the road; it is their natural habitat. The fact that this car was sideways in the road blocking both lanes is what gave me pause. He’s lucky I had my headlights on and was looking out the front windshield and know how to work the brake or we could have had a seriously ill-advised game of chicken on our hands. And judging by the size of his (Excursion/Navigator/insert euphemistic gas guzzling SUV name here), he would have won easily. I implicitly conceded defeat and slowed down to allow him to creep backwards into a driveway across the street. As I zipped around this mystery stranger’s grill, I flipped him off and somewhat less-than-politely enumerated my concerns about his driving ability, two unfortunate and rarely-used habits lingering from my commuting days.

Now before I go on, allow me two explanatory digressions. First of all, the speed limit on this road is significantly faster than the standard Reggie-gawker speed of 3.5 miles per hour. As my mother is fond of shouting, the speed limit is 45, not ‘stop and look at Reggie’s house.’ Second of all, I am not usually so explicit in my hand gestures. I’ve only flipped off one stranger before, and that was an old man in a Buick. Long story. I generally prefer shouts and have recently come into my own in the horn-honking arena. I was just in a hurry and feeling particularly animated, I guess.

So after my display, we continued down the road. Laura turned to determine the cause of this car’s bizarre behavior. The verdict was that the mystery car was not a typical gawker, as they are rarely allowed within the iron gates where this car was currently heading. Oops. I have just flipped off Reggie Miller, albeit in the dark of the night through heavily tinted windows, because he was waiting for the sprinklers to turn so he wouldn’t get water spots on his car, a personality trait which sort of makes me glad I did it.

Now, to you naysayers who I know are out there, no- I didn’t actually see the man. In fact, I’ve never seen him in person, nor would I be very likely to recognize him. I live in Indiana and don’t like basketball, but I haven’t been tossed out yet. I’m a curiosity, I know. But the members of my family who have had CRSs (Confirmed Reggie Sightings) tell me that he always appears in a large black SUV. That plus deductive reasoning equals I flipped off Reggie Miller. And I’m sure he’s seen and heard worse at games but this is MY story and I’ll focus on what I want.

Well, that pretty much sums up my limited experience with the glitterati. Not very impressive, now that I look at it. Though for all I know, there could be many more meetings. I am amazingly bad at recognizing people. My life could be lousy with unrecognized celebrity encounters and I would have no idea. Case in point: two of the three encounters documented here had to be pointed out to me by others. (I figured out Dopperfield on my own, thank you very much).

Our society may not have gods and goddesses to gossip about, but there are always modern parallels. Tara Reid, the goddess of “accidental” silicone exposure; Ashlee Simpson, the demigoddess of GERD; and Tom Cruise, god of the Batshit Insanity, all residing happily together atop Mount Tabloydus, occasionally descending to give me something to blog about. Thanks, guys. Keep up the crazy.

Hamwine or no...

Let it never be said that Tara punks out on dares.

Your Mom Goes to Hogwarts.

Those prefects sure know how to live when it comes to bath time. Countless faucets spewing all sorts of mysteriously colored liquids, including but not limited to scented bubble baths, artesian spring water and bleach, judging by Harry’s complete lack of skin pigmentation. But here’s what really got us. You may not know this, but the actress who plays Moaning Myrtle is forty. Now we defy you to watch that scene again without getting creeped out.

Apparently the HP folks learned from the failed merchandising of the recent Star Wars films. Tara attempted to locate some fun HP stuff as an act of goodwill for her recent visit to Lisa’s pad. An hour in Target ended with nothing except some chocolate and bug gum, both completely unrelated to HP. Where will Tara get her blue Beauxbatons tracksuit? Will Lisa ever locate a Hogwarts hoodie? These questions will never be answered.

Both authors also feel confident in their ability to fire off a biting insult to the average British citizen should the need arise. Nothing puts fear into the hearts of your enemies like a good “You stink!” or an angry “Off to bed with you!” Thankfully, Moody is around to properly school young Hogwarts students about the proper way to harass others. It’s nice to see someone else who shares our belief that transfiguration, rather than communication, is the best way to deal with any problems one may encounter. Good thing this movie taught us the correlation between ferrets and crotches in the Hogwarts establishment that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.


Here’s what you need to succeed at the second task: a kick-ass calf wand holster and some flora phlegm. Consider yourself warned: even that won’t ward off the creepy shark-tailed merpeople. This sentiment may stem from a too-early viewing of Jaws that left Lisa permanently scarred. But those are her issues… maybe Tara should finish up this paragraph. Speaking of the merpeople, we’re pretty sure that Ariel didn’t look like that. If she did, becoming a human was the best choice she ever made. Other issues with this task come from Harry’s failure to recall that he is a wizard until after the task was officially over. Could he not have used his blast-out-of-the-water spell at the beginning of the task rather than waiting until he was about to be drowned by the MIB underwater alien babies? Honestly, Harry. You could have won that task. What would Pappy Potter have done? He would have acted like a wizard, this much we assure you. He also would have tapped into the wizard cappuccino machine sitting on the viewing platform. Any respectable wizard would have.


And after several more scenes about which we can’t think of anything snarky to say, we come to the final task. The Hogwarts students gather round to watch the Champions enter the labyrinth and then sit there, essentially blind to any goings-on of the task for however many hours it takes for someone to find a Triwizard cup in several square miles of hedge maze. Sounds like a blast- where can we buy tickets? At least they’ve got the bizarro-wizard instruments to keep them entertained. Geez, and we thought regular baritones were bad.

Dumbledore gathers the Champions around him to give them some mysterious and basically unhelpful words of pseudo-wisdom: “In the maze, you'll find no dragons or creatures of the deep. Instead you'll find something much more challenging: A waning CGI budget.” Or something to that effect. Then, they enter the last task: Attack of the Killer Shrubbery. Most of us have had a horrifying experience or two involving shrubbery. Whether it be an unfortunate incident involving excessive mixing of certain beverages with a Metro ride gone horribly wrong or a childhood game of hide and seek ending with a terrifyingly translucent spider crawling menacingly towards you, shrubs are something we can all unite against. At least we can be safe in the knowledge that we have never had hedges that would attack with little to no warning. Simple blessings. It could be hoped that a tournament reliably known to end in the gruesome death of at least one of its participants would have a bigger final challenge than restless shrubbery and the occasional errant vine. Gone are all the daunting creatures that filled the book-maze; they’ve been omitted in favor of the Stiff Wind of Bad Sportsmanship.


So Harry and Cedric grab the cup together, blah blah transported to a cemetery blah. And while Lisa did not take Tara up on her twenty dollar bet to stand up and shout this to the masses in the theater, she will here:

CEDRIC IS IMMEDIATELY AK’D BY WORMTAIL.

Sorry, Ced. Then it’s time for Cooking with Pettigrew: a dash of your estranged father’s femur, a pinch of your lackey’s entire right hand, a tablespoon of your arch nemesis’ blood and baby, you got a stew goin’. Creepy giant naked fetus stew. BAM! Lord Voldemort has returned with less of a nose than Michael Jackson, and he’s super pissed about his terrible manicure and his lack of flip-flops. This calls for an evil class reunion: the still-loyal Deatheaters zoom in from parts unknown and prepare to rock it old school, but not until after Voldy rips off their hoodies and Mardi-Gras masks and makes them cry like little girls. That man is the master of the “your mother” joke genre. Perhaps Malfoy should invest in some Deatheater static cling spray- he definitely had some frizzies when his hood came off.

Voldy then turns his attention and his insults to Harry, who promptly hides behind a gravestone before eventually facing him in a combination magical laser light show and cage match to the death. Lisa sat a bit close to the screen due to a misunderestimation of travel time, and the sudsy magic that flowed freely from their wands was so bright her eyes were watering. Were we ever involved in such a duel, we would do well to remember sunglasses, is what we’re saying here. The tears of a sensitive-eyed individual are not very intimidating.


Now, we aren’t going to ruin the ending of the movie for you. Maybe Harry Potter dies in the end of the movie based on the fourth book of a series of seven books, all of which are named after him. We’re in no position to spoil that for you. Go out and enjoy the movie while it’s still in theaters- God knows we did.

mischief managed...

Harry Potter and the Never-Ending Blog: Pappy...er, Partie Deux

A week has passed since the first installment of Tara and Lisa's wisdom. It's good to see all the hard work inspired two comments, a full half of which were posted by the authors themselves. Our dedication to ourselves is astounding. Thank you, Tara, for your insight.

It’s a shame we couldn’t have seen the other Champions in the first task, but we accept that this didn’t happen in the book and based on our previous nitpicking, this wish would make us complete hypocrites. No one wants that. We waited in the tent with Harry, and that’s fine. We got to see the trunks of ‘Hogwarts Field Supplies,’ which should be available for purchase at any upscale outdoor sporting goods retailer. When opened, they reveal a small placard that reads “Your damn wand, because you’re a wizard, you idiot.” The tent also held beds for the sleepy Champions to rest a bit before their task. A little nap before you face your dragon. “I’m just gonna take a nap while you guys tackle the dragons. Someone set an alarm for me, ‘kay? I don’t want to sleep through my task. Good talk- I’ll see you out there.”

Maybe we don’t have the flair for the dramatic timing that Mr. Potter does, but we’d be Accio Firebolt-ing it as soon as we set foot into that rock quarry, especially knowing that the broom was going to take the scenic route to get to us. And to hell with the broom anyway- why not Accio the egg and be done with it? Unless you think the egg had charms on it to prevent such actions, in which case congratulations, you have officially over-thought the first task.

Once the Firebolt decides to arrive, though, we must commend Harry on flying right through the professors’ tent. That was an awesome dick move apropos of nothing. And one would think that the spectators would be mildly curious as to what Harry was doing after the dragon broke its chain and chased him out onto campus. You’d be wrong. Not even a magically conjured Jumbo-tron to let them know if their classmate has been charbroiled. The safety measures discussed in the book were obviously eschewed in favor of rooftop tension- and Harry doesn’t even get a spotter. These Triwizard organizers aren’t screwing around with the death and the peril. Not even the Hogwarts roof shingles or random stone aqueducts were safe. “Welcome to the Triwizard Tournament! Our first task will be sponsored by the Wizarding Roofing and Masonry Union Local #142.”


After the first task, Harry has a huge cut on his face, which we later see is being held closed by (presumably) mystical, magical butterfly bandages. You’d think they’d have a spell for that. Speaking of things they should have spells for, several times during the movie I was tempted to raise an imaginary wand and shout ORTHODONTIUM! at a set of particularly British teeth. And Karkarov… Remind us not to sign up for the Azkaban Dental Plan. EVER.


The Harry Potter series is known as a set of books that are appropriate for both children and adults. If this is the case, why must all readers in their twenties be disenfranchised by the obvious lack of any twenty-ish characters in this movie? Two opportunities were usurped by the moviemakers’ attempt to cut down on time as well as their obvious lack of nerdiness concerning book details. Example one: Ron’s brother, Charlie, is cut out of the illicit dragon-viewing scene. Many may have wondered what Charlie would look like. Unfortunately, he looked like he’d cost too much to have in the movie, so we’ll never know. He is described as being good-looking in the book, so why deny the Gen X crowd a little eye candy? Thanks a bunch. (Author’s note: This is particularly disturbing to Lisa, who likes the occasional redhead. Other Author’s note: That’s a lie and you know it, you dirty bitch.)

Example two: It’s a common misconception that ghosts don’t age. This is clearly not the case in HP world. When we see Harry’s parents, they are somehow the same age as their living classmates despite the fact that they have been dead for going on thirteen years. Oops, another way to cut out some 25 year olds.

This change may not have been as noticeable had the actor chosen to play James/Pappy not been such a complete nerd. (Glossary: Pappy Potter – Affectionate term used to refer to Harry’s deceased father/pappy, James Potter. Phrase coined following the unanswered question, “Whatever happened to Harry’s grandparents?”) The badass Pappy Potter of the books should not appear onscreen looking like a forty year-old accountant whose most significant accomplishment in life is his remarkably extensive sweater vest collection. He doesn’t look like someone who would stick it to the man, as Pappy frequently did. (Author’s note: This is especially distressing to Tara, who enjoys a good case of crazy-hair and sports an unhealthy obsession with what she insists on calling “sticking it to the man.” We’re not sure what “it” is, and we don't care to find out. Other Author’s note: There’s nothing wrong with sticking it to the man, as he’s out to keep us all down. And at least I don’t dig on the redheads, ass.)


Snape beating the hell out of the backs of Ron and Harry’s heads? Best scene in the movie. Also, kudos to Fred and George on getting some acting lessons. Not cringing after every line they speak is definitely an improvement.

We loved how anyone at the ball with any hint of some sort of foreign nationality to them shopped at Ethnicities R Us for their dresses. And as Harry and Parvati walked in, she was waving around at her adoring public like she had just been crowned Miss Hogwarts 2005. Keep it in your sari, princess. You’re a last resort. And while everyone else was hitting up the Stereotype Stripmall for his or her Ball couture, Ron did his shopping in Elton John’s trashcan. You’d think Hermione could’ve helped him out with a little DE-LACE-IA! and a couple blasts of SARTORIAL ADJUST-IUM! Then maybe his tuxedo-dress could’ve been as pretty as Harry’s. Geez, Hermione. Quit bein’ such a bitch. Surely Mrs. Weasley would have a book on this matter. Hell, even a pair of scissors would’ve helped.

The wizard band and their Muppet-skin outfits were apparently good enough in the wizarding world to inspire a midget mosh pit, which is always a good time. But honestly? Their lyrics were trite and the singing was a little bit pitchy, dawg. Ha- kidding. Midget mosh pit equals an automatic A+.

And finally, hooray for Neville “I Could Have Danced All Night” Longbottom for finally getting one day in his life where no one’s telling him how useless he is… or how his parents are insane gum wrapper collectors… or how bad his teeth are… and wow, we hope this kid never goes on the internet and Googles himself. Sorry, Nev. But really, way to go on the dancing.

In the next installment: water and nudity in varying degrees of creepiness, angry shrubberies, the ferocity of British verbal dueling and reasons not to grab pretty, shiny objects.

A word to the wise...

I mock because I love. Don't doubt the extent of my nerd-love for HP- there's still two more blog sections to go.

Merlin's Beard! The Long Awaited Tara and Lisa and the Goblet of Fire Blog: Part One

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 154 minutes, rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence, frightening images, Ron saying "piss off," giant sexuality and creepy fetal nudity. Opens November 18th, 2005 so yes, this did take us over a month to complete. Shut up, we’re very busy and important.


A word to the wise – if you’re, hypothetically, debating in the car if you should wear your Gryffindor scarf into the theater, and some guy walks past you in an unruly black wig and round spectacles, you can rest assured that your scarf will not mark you for mockery. You are among friends. However, if you wear sorting hats AND bring books to read, some guy working for a newspaper will photograph you, and I will hate you for outdoing me.

Harry Potter movies are also excellent for eighteen flavors of Mom vs. Mom seat hostility. In some perversion of the natural instinct to protect one’s young we can observe the fierce instinct to get ones bratlings the best theater seats possible, even if it be at the expense of ones own senses of propriety and human dignity. Hilarious, really. Unless you get in the middle of such an encounter- it’s best to stay an uninvolved observer in these cases. Get there early and set up a blind of Goober boxes and popcorn bags so as not to disturb the delicate balance of nature.


Any movie that is based on a book is bound to be plagued by our arch nemesis: the Lecturing Scholar. These individuals can vary in age, volume and veracity; a single scholar can ruin a movie, and there is currently no screening process to weed them out. Under the guise of either helping out or showing off, they feel the need to name each character and explain in detail his or her importance to the plot, how the cast actor or actress differs from the scholar’s own mental image of him or her, and any memorable quotes from the book they can recall. As there are usually no outward physical symptoms of this condition, avoiding them during the seating process can be difficult: they do not reveal themselves until the theater is dark and the opening credits are rolling. The only remedy for an L.S. is the Anonymous Angry Shhh or, failing that, the Half Head Turn and Peripheral Vision Glare. Advanced individuals may feel comfortable combining these two techniques into an exceptionally effective silencing method, but your average moviegoer should practice at home before attempting this in public. It’s best to silence the L.S. rapidly and immediately lest he or she fall under the impression that anyone is interested in their undoubtedly encyclopedic knowledge of “who Nagini is.” Thanks for the tip- we read the books too. But we have the sense to keep our conspiracy theories to ourselves until we can elaborate on our blogs.

What conspiracy theories, you ask, even if you didn’t? Tara, for one, wants to know what’s up with the conspiracy against women in this movie. Here’s a probable conversation between author J.K. Rowling and GoF director Mike Newell.

MN: We need to cut out some time. Let’s lose Momma Weas, Cedric’s mom and Mrs. Crouch. While we’re at it, let’s make Moaning Myrtle and Rita Skitter creepy, creepy pedophiles.

JKR: That sounds fine, but don’t destroy too many female characters, because I did that a lil bit already. I made Fleur the most worthless champion. Harry’s mom is only in GoF because I needed someone to play the secretary announcing the arrival of Pappy Potter. Oh, and don’t forget that Nagini, the evil snake, is female.
MN and JKR slap each other five and call it a day.

One thing from the book that was (sort of) left in the movie was the Quidditch World Cup. If you don’t know what Quidditch is, we’re not exactly clear why you’re reading any of this. It’s only gonna be down the steep, slippery slope of nerd-dom from here on out. Some viewers were freaked by the Sonorus-ication of Fudge (see what we mean with the nerd?) while others were freaked by Vertigo Stadium, which hosted what little we saw of the QWC. They cut out most of the Quidditch for Ron’s recitation of ‘How Do I Love Thee, Krum? Let Me Count The Ways.’ Some contributors to this blog think that Ron is worthless. These individuals nearly wet their pants at the line “Ron Weasley, Harry Potter’s stupid friend,” and felt that it summed up their attitude perfectly. Others just kind of laugh and try to reiterate that book-Ron is really quite humorous and that also that he’s a fast runner. So Ron’s pretty much a mixed bag.


Some aspects come with an explanation for why they were cut, while others were added for no discernible reason. Case in point: the ceiling freak-out when Moody entered. Elements of Harry Potter movies should not confuse twenty four-year-olds. Also, how did young Barty Crouch Jr. know all the magic that Moody, an experienced auror, would know? Perhaps as a boy he held some sort of internship with The Man, or else was enrolled in some sort of fast track to the Upper Echelons of Ultimate Evil grooming program. The world may never know, or even wonder about it too much. Oh, and speaking of grooming- Crouch? The Hitler ‘stache went out for a reason. Please shave accordingly. At least we can be grateful that Sporadic Evil Snake Tongue is not a heritable trait. Unfortunately, his Chicklet front teeth à la Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace would be passed on to the next generation – and yes, feel free to marvel at the depth of my cultural allusions. Inexplicable random creepiness in lieu of actual story events: curious call, filmmakers.


By cutting straight to the QWC, we also miss out on our yearly Dursley fix. And in this book, that means no embarrassingly over-stamped letter, no busting of the wall in front of the fireplace, and no twins slipping Dudders the infamous toffee. In short, no magical bitchslap of the Dursleys at all, unfortunately. Since they didn’t have to pay the Dursley actors this year, you’d think they could’ve splurged and bought Dumbledore more than one effin’ robe for the entire movie. Surely his Muggle equivalent would have his own clothing line. Dumbledore’s Duds. Dumbledresses. “D.” Albie-D would definitely have been invited to many a friendly game of Butterbeer Beirut. His pimpin’ dress did nothing to cover the Butterbeer belly that was obviously cultivated with constant dedication to the art of the drink. The question remains: Butterbeer or Firewhiskey? One could guess that it depends on which choice could give his nail beds the creepy pallor of recent death they seemed to have. However, don’t ask Dumbledore about the estimated one billion rings he wore throughout the movie. He doesn’t like talking about his flair.


Hermione stated that the whole purpose of the Triwizard Tournament was to improve international magical cooperation. Not going to lie here: it’s a little difficult to take visiting schools seriously when their students either flounce around exhaling butterflies à la American Beauty or stomp around doing a magical dance with sparking pimpsticks. When did we have time to learn that, boys? Sample Durmstrang schedule: 8:00 - Charms; 10:00 - Potions; 1:30 - Tumbling and Dance.

Question: Why were the eventual champions not involved in the ShowOff-tacular designed to astound and amaze the students of Hogwarts? Answer: Dancing like a circus monkey does not an angry champion make. And Fleur didn’t want to wrinkle her satin whore outfit. ‘Nuff said.


In the next installment: HP goes mano a dragon, we cover some spells that should have been, expose some GenX disenfranchisement and play a little Dance Dance Revolution – Wizard Edition.