Day: November 18, 2010

Smile Time Off

We had Chinese food tonight. My fortune: “Reflect on yourself before anyone can look down on you.” All right, then…

I did practically nothing today, which was pretty much everything I could have asked from a day off and more.

I slept late, kicked around in my pajamas for longer than was a respectable, read a little, listened to a little music, watched a little TV (specifically this), and overall just enjoyed not doing anything of consequence.

This evening, I had a dentist appointment, for a checkup and a cleaning, which went by without a hitch. I was there maybe forty-five minutes altogether. I don’t enjoy going to the dentist, but I don’t dislike it as much as I might expect to, given how much I disliked it when I was younger. I’m certainly not phobic about it, but maybe that’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve had any cavities and the need for a follow-up. I’m not bragging or anything; I suspect that’s probably common as one moves out of childhood, and I did have a tooth crack a couple of years ago and need to be capped, so it’s not like my teeth are this paragon of pearly white. But the fact remains, I’m less nervous about going to the dentist than to other doctors, and today was no exception.

I think tomorrow I may have to actually need to leave the house before four o’clock in the afternoon, but I’m still going to try and squeeze in a little bit of nothing before the day is out.

Thursday various

  • Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but is “it’s on like Donkey Kong” actually such a popular phrase? I’m going to try to popularize the phrase “This is gonna hurt like Q*bert!”
  • I didn’t love what I saw of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and it seemed a little like a well-intentioned but disjointed mess. But I’m perfectly willing to accept Jon Stewart’s argument (expressed in this long and compelling interview with Rachel Maddow) that those intentions were entirely apolitical on their part. That they were just trying to put on a comedy show, and whatever “message” the rally had, it was not the same message that so many of his viewers, so many of the left-leaning progressives who attended the rally and are bemoaning its outcome, clearly wanted it to be. I’m perfectly willing to let Stewart pass for falling short of what I hoped the rally would be — a call to arms, groundbreaking satire, something, anything other than a singalong with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I’m willing to let Stewart pass on this, the same way I’m not willing to let Obama pass for falling short on his own call to arms, because when you get right down to it, I buy Stewart’s contention that he’s just a comedian. A comedian with a political bent and sometimes important insight, but one following in pretty well-established treads and with pretty well-established boundaries. It can seem like a cop-out, and I think Stewart acknowledges that, but I think he also does a good job of explaining why it’s not, why his job isn’t drumming up progressive activism (on the left or right) but instead making people laugh.

    I think you can argue that the rally wasn’t entirely successful on that front either, but I think it’s important to weigh expectations against intentions.

  • On a less serious note, Harry Potter as space opera [via]
  • Uwe Boll: he just might make you root for the Nazis.
  • And finally, building the perfect zombie safe house.