Musings and Mirth

About Me

I spend way too much thinking about me. This is the blank space where that paragraph should be.

Watching Movies with Emma: The Bad News Bears

When did the message stop being, “it’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game” and turn into “everybody’s a winner”? I’ll tell you when. When money started being the primary reason for making kids films at all. They have become so narrowly focused grouped, so formulaic that a hard lesson, like the one learned in the Bad News Bears, would be deemed a “bummer ending” today. And it would probably never get made (even if it did get made into a respectable remake with the Billy Bob).

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Wake-Up Moms and Dads – Know what Your Tween is Doing Online

I don’t even know what to say about this poor mom. But I suggest she get herself a computer and learn how to use google and Youtube.

You have, no doubt, heard about the latest YouTube sensation of poor little kerligirl, aka Jessi Slaughter aka Jessica Leonhardt. The last one is her real name. Her videos are completely sad and bizarre. But it goes along with what I’ve been wanting to impart onto parents for, like, ever.

A little bit of history: I’ve been online for almost fifteen years, I’m embarrassed to say. I found this world after a kind of painful breakup and I never came out of it. I live a regular life, too. But in the first few years, I didn’t. I was completely submerged in the online community, the global world of cybergeeks, as they were known then. This is even before there was a World Wide Web. If there is one thing I know it’s internet culture. And I can tell you, without question, that the best and the worst of human nature is exhibited here. As great and supportive as people can be, as kind and flattering as they often are, there are mean people out there. There are REALLY REALLY mean people whose shadow lives are lived out online. Because they can’t call their boss a “fat bitch” out loud they use that hate and put it all online.

There are some people to genuinely fear.

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It’s All for Ratings, Folks

One must always remember that the producers on the Bachelorette like high ratings and they don’t much care about anything else. Since couples do not really “work” after the cameras stop rolling, all they have to hold on to are the failed relationships and those, it turns out, draw higher ratings than the successful ones (because there is still only one of those).

Reality Steve is the guy who has this whole thing nailed down, so if you aren’t reading his site regarding The Bachelorette and The Bachelor fakitude, you should start now.

If I wanted to bypass the whole idea that the producers allowed this whole Frank mess to go forward without having known about it in advance of Tahiti, well then I could lay the whole thing on Frank, which I have no problem doing. Of all of the guys, he always seemed the most fake. He’s a screenwriter, for god’s sake. I’m sure he thought it was a smart idea to make a lot of money (he lives with his parents and so he needs the money – perhaps that is why his girlfriend in Chicago dumped him anyway — now that he’s got money, she’s interested again) by going on the show. But then he liked being on the show – all he had to do was fake-profess his love and travel to pretty locales, eat great food, and be on a TV show!

RealitySteve’s spoiler says that Ali ends up with neither guy, and that is the way it’s shaping up at this point. Chris and Roberto are both standup dudes – both probably want to be actors.

The only problem about this whole thing is that we watch it at all. Even morbid curiosity is no excuse!

The Fake FAKE FAKE Bachelorette

This season’s Bachelorette, I started watching it because I was trying to launch a website about celebrity gossip, and my idea was to live blog the stupid ABC show. But the website never took off but I continued to watch this stupid stupid STUPID STUPID show. By now, it’s almost the finale – and I’m watching the lame-ass Frank fake-confess his love for his ex-girlfriend.

Here’s the thing: it’s all an act. He’s a screenwriter, he’s looking for fame, he probably never thought he would get as far as he had and when it came down to it, his plan with his stupid girlfriend was foiled.

I just want to state it for the record that the producers of the show, and its brain-dead participants, aren’t fooling anyone. Blech.

Camping with Girls

A few weeks ago, I went camping with two twelve year-old girls and my old friend Robert (who has no kids). It was a fun trip but had shades of those fight scenes in Close Encounters, you know, the ones that motivate Richard Dreyfuss to finally leave the planet Earth? Girls are strange at 12 and 13, as they leave their kid selves and start to transition into teenagers and from thence into adulthood. Well, the truth is, you can’t stop time. And if you could, where would stop it? Would you stop it when they’re about 4? When they just start to talk and read and are so devoted and dependent?

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Mel Gibson Comment Poetry

This from US Weekly’s story about Oksana supposedly trying to extort 10 million from Mel Gibson to keep audio tapes under wraps.

Bless Mel’s heart
because he made a stupid decision leaving Robin for this money hungry tramp looking for a free ride.
That’s just plain wrong!
But she got the reaction she was plotting to get!
Bimbo!
I don’t beleive anything this sorry excuse for a women says.
Whey would she be recording conversations w/the father of her child if she wasn’t out for something.
She’s ugly and Mel has some amazing talent.
The man is a victim of this barracuda
who is just trying to
extort millions from him
using that baby she had,
without his permission,
she just set him up
and got pregnant to entrap him
and then is going in for the kill.
Poor Man

I would bet Oksana provokes Mel into his rants.
She looks like a Bittch and probably pushes Mel’s buttons.

Ok, now this I actually believe.
That Russian euro trash
isn’t worth the clothes on her back.
She gets uglier with each photo I see of her.
She’s probably a Russian spy.