Blogger commenting system, redux

Re-testing out Blogger's commenting system because (a) I think they've changed it since we tried using it here and (b) I really don't like that old Haloscan comments aren't accessible anymore.

G is for Girls with gumption

(...Which was the title given to a section of fairy or folk tales in one of my Children's Lit books last year.)

There are so many strong (or strong-willed) fictional female characters on TV and in movies that I wish I resembled more, in some way. I mean, there they are, fighting the literal or non-literal forces of darkness or facing daily challenges, while I'm almost constantly too scared to try anything that might cause any potentially significant changes, whether they be good or bad. I mean, if I could just take one page out of one of these characters' books, I'm sure I'd be all the better for it. And so, I thought I'd list out who these characters are, just to take stock, but keep in mind that I'd probably aspire more to some of these characters than to others. It isn't a long list, but it'll do for now. I'm ignoring characters from classic movies (and books, for that matter), as I just can't be bothered at the moment and since that would likely result in a much longer list. And also, I'm kinda just pulling these names out of thin air, so I wouldn't give the inclusion or exclusion of certain names too much weight. :)

• The various girls of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Veronica Mars of Veronica Mars
• Dana Scully of The X-Files, I'd reckon, but I don't know the character too well yet
• Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons
• Sydney Bristow of Alias
• Max Guevara (X5-452) of Dark Angel
• Arwen of The Lord of the Rings
• Eowyn of The Lord of the Rings
• Hermione Granger of Harry Potter
• Ginny Weasley of Harry Potter
• Elizabeth Swann of Pirates of the Caribbean
• Vada Sultenfuss of My Girl
• Angela Chase of My So-Called Life
• Lara Croft of Tomb Raider
• The girls of Roswell

(There. Consider Freefalling officially updated. Whee! ;))

F is for Famous Lines

The AFI's list of the Top 100 Movie Quotes is out. Divorced from their movie's title, how many of them can you place? (It's like a massive version of the movie quotes game we were playing a few months ago.)

Why are there so many of these I've never heard before?
On the plus side...Dead Poets Society is on here, which was a pleasant surprise.

1. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
2. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
3. You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.
4. Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
5. Here's looking at you, kid.
6. Go ahead, make my day.
7. All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
8. May the Force be with you.
9. Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.
10. You talking to me?
11. What we've got here is failure to communicate.
12. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
13. Love means never having to say you're sorry.
14. The stuff that dreams are made of.
15. E.T. phone home.
16. They call me Mister Tibbs!
17. Rosebud.
18. Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
19. I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
20. Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
21. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
22. Bond. James Bond.
23. There's no place like home.
24. I am big! It's the pictures that got small.
25. Show me the money!
26. Why don't you come up sometime and see me?
27. I'm walking here! I'm walking here!
28. Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'
29. You can't handle the truth!
30. I want to be alone.
31. After all, tomorrow is another day!
32. Round up the usual suspects.
33. I'll have what she's having.
34. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
35. You're gonna need a bigger boat.
36. Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!
37. I'll be back.
38. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
39. If you build it, he will come.
40. Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
41. We rob banks.
42. Plastics.
43. We'll always have Paris.
44. I see dead people.
45. Stella! Hey, Stella!
46. Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.
47. Shane. Shane. Come back!
48. Well, nobody's perfect.
49. It's alive! It's alive!
50. Houston, we have a problem.
51. You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?
52. You had me at "hello."
53. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.
54. There's no crying in baseball!
55. La-dee-da, la-dee-da.
56. A boy's best friend is his mother.
57. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
58. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
59. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.
60. Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!
61. Say "hello" to my little friend!
62. What a dump.
63. Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?
64. Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
65. Elementary, my dear Watson.
66. Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.
67. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
68. Here's Johnny!
69. They're here!
70. Is it safe?
71. Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!
72. No wire hangers, ever!
73. Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?
74. Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
75. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
76. Hasta la vista, baby.
77. Soylent Green is people!
78. Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
79. Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious…and don't call me Shirley.
80. Yo, Adrian!
81. Hello, gorgeous.
82. Toga! Toga!
83. Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
84. Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.
85. My precious.
86. Attica! Attica!
87. Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!
88. Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!
89. Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.
90. A martini. Shaken, not stirred.
91. Who's on first.
92. Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!
93. Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!
94. I feel the need - the need for speed!
95. Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.
96. Snap out of it!
97. My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.
98. Nobody puts Baby in a corner.
99. I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!
100. I'm king of the world!


What are your favourite movie lines?

E is for Engelbert Humperdinck

It probably is symptomatic of something dire that, in casting around for a plausible "E" topic, the first thing that sprang to mind was this dubious moniker. However, it just wouldn't leave, so here we are.

At the time I got the idea for this post, I had absolutely no clue to whom or to what this name refers. (Do I hear gasps from the crowd?) It's one of those names that just makes you snicker. Now, there's not a lot you can do to improve your poor kid's lot in life when your name is Humperdinck -- the makers of The Princess Bride knew this. I'd be an evil prince too if I had had to go through life saddled with a name that sounds like a vulgar invitation. I still firmly believe, however, that in this case, a strong, no-nonsense given name like Hans or Klaus or something would really have helped. It almost seems like the parents went "Aw, hell, what's the point, we may as well wreck his life with a flourish."

A quick Google search turns up not one, but two distinct referees. Engelbert Humperdinck the First, a man possessed of an impressive handlebar moustache, was a composer and musician. He served as music tutor to Wagner's son, who probably didn't lose as much study time sniggering at his tutor's name as one might expect, given that, in the native German, a word like Humperdinck probably gets lost amidst other silly-sounding words (and probably doesn't suggest quite the same act as in English, either). He is best remembered (and I didn't know this) for the operatic setting of "Hänsel und Gretel", a whimsical and unpretentious piece which garnered more public success than any of his future works. So much for Engelbert Humperdinck the First.

Engelbert Humperdinck the Second is possessed, not of a handlebar moustache, but of impressive sideburns. His official fansite explains that "he has been a legend in the international music industry for the last thirty years, with over 130 million records sold. Engelbert Humperdinck [...] has recorded everything from the most romantic ballads to the platinum-selling theme song 'Lesbian Seagull' for the latest Beavis and Butthead movie." (Of course, his official fansite also frequently refers to him as "The Humpster", so you have to wonder, with friends like that....) Enge was born Arnold George Dorsey; it was a manager, one Gordon Mills, who plucked the Engelbert Humperdinck out of the history books and said "Hey, no audience will ever forget someone with with THAT name!" (And again I ask: with friends like that....) Still, I guess he was right, sort of: the first page of Google returns contains seven links for this modern-day Humperdinck, compared to the original's three.

Two interesting comments from Englebert Humperdinck II's fans:

"Engelbert should add the song Universe by Savage Garden to is [sic]stage act.
Regards Christopher Eggen"

"When I was 11 or 12 my mum (now sadly departed) had the most enormous crush on you and dragged me to your concert in Portsmouth with her.
I say dragged, because I was far too young to have any thoughts on what music or groups I liked. I will always remember her swaying to your music at that concert and her clapping and crying (yes, crying!) when you left the stage. That was some 35 years ago! And do you know what – you formulated my first experience of being mesmerised by a man! You paved the way for me in what I was going to want to listen too, the type of men I was going to be attracted too and my whole idea of romance. You were the yardstick by which most were measured against!"

Now that I know about this guy, I'm thinking that he's the inspiration for Rex Manning from Empire Records. I'm wondering about first, brief, deeply formative impressions, like the woman above describes. I'm also wondering what Engelbert Humperdinck I would be thinking if he knew that his namesake penned a song called "Lesbian Seagull". Thoughts?

~SQ

D is for 'maybe it's not just about denim'

Let me start off with a quote, courtesy of Flames.

'...but I mean things like Gap are always ok...but the most recent thing is all the jeans that look like they've been worn for years...bleached in various spots...you know what I mean...not to mention the A&F stuff that has rips in it or has crummy lettering on it...I don't get how clothing companies figure we'll actually want something that LOOKS like it's been worn for about 5 years already...and pay 30+ for it at that!! Actually, what's worse is that most people we went to school with actually DID this...and what's even worse is that *I* am starting to find these things attractive....'

I won't explicitly post my thoughts on this matter as of yet - my intent is to open up a discussion of sorts. Let me point out to you the portion of the above quote that is highlighted in boldface. Now, we all know that the high school which we all attended tends to be associated with all things 'materialistic' or 'superficial'. Why is it bad that 'most people we went to school with actually DID this', and why is it worse that some of us are 'starting to find these things attractive'?

This is not necessarily a superficial discussion, as the reasons behind differing viewpoints are more complex than one would think. I see culture as one of these reasons, but will leave it at that for now.

Undoubtedly - like New York City and Tori Amos - such topics tend to inspire extreme feelings and very little indifference, as SQ succinctly put it, and I reckon that a discussion on the link between sartorial matters and our schooling will provoke much division in opinion.

Discuss. But first, let me get my claws out.

B + 0.75 (or C - 0.25) is for passing the time

So, you know, just to fill up space on the page, I'm posting a section of narration from The Two Towers that I liked enough to actually copy down after I'd read it back in May of 2004. As I noted at the time, it's part of a paragraph in the second last chapter, "Shelob's Lair". Here it is.

"Here the air was still, stagnant, heavy, and sound fell dead. They walked as it were in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was breathed, brought blindness not only to the eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory of colours and of forms and of any light faded out of thought. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all."

I love that last sentence. Heaven knows why.

B + 0.5 (or C - 0.5) is for intermittent lulls

...whilst waiting for Flames to publish a post.

La la la!

La la la la la la!

Ohohohoho, Santa will be eating all of your cookies soon.

B is for bad omens

These are not necessarily songs I dislike. However, the first few moments of wakedness find me in a different frame of mind from any other moments of the day, and in that first half-hour or so of consciousness, my opinions are quite strong. Any of these five songs coming from my clock-radio at 7:00 in the morning is guaranteed to signal a bad day ahead:

Santana and Michelle Branch -- "Game of Love". GGGRRRGGHHH!!!!! Two bars of this is enough to make me want to gnaw my leg off. And why is this a perennial favourite for morning shows?
4 Non Blondes -- "What's Going On?". The quavery, yodelly, register-skipping voice just sets me on edge for the rest of my waking hours.
Ashlee Simpson -- "Pieces of Me". I wish someone would burn all extant copies of the vocal track of this song. As we all know now, she'll never be able to recreate it.
Train -- "Drops of Jupiter". Holy-was-overplayed-like-three-years-ago, plus I simply cannot countenance the thought of soy lattés and fried chicken at that hour.
Avril Lavigne -- "Sk8er Boi". Something about the in-your-facedness makes me want to throw the damn clock clean down the hall.
Counting Crows -- "Accidentally in Love". That wacky, kazoodly bit at the beginning makes all my hair stand on end when it's the first sound I hear all day. It's like waking up and eating an overly-sugared Sour Key: spine-wrenching.

There are only five, but for some reason, they come up A LOT, regardless of what radio station I set my alarm to. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps radio execs feel that they're blandly top-40ish enough not to annoy anyone.

Anyone have any bad morning omens? Songs or otherwise?

A is for AFI vs. IMDb

In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) published its list of the 100 greatest movies. They are, in AFI members' collective opinion, the best films that were produced during the first 100 years of American filmmaking, and they span from back in 1912 all the way to 1996 (which, unless I'm mistaken, is only 84 years, but...okay).

Anyway, I just thought I'd compare the top 20 of AFI's list with the 20 top movies as voted by the general public on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)...except that I'm taking out any of the movies on the IMDb list that came after 1996. Here's how they compare...

AFI	IMDb
1. Citizen Kane (1941)	1. The Godfather (1972)
2. Casablanca (1942)	2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather (1972)	3. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
4. Gone with the Wind (1939)	4. Seventh Samurai (1954)
5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)	5. Schindler's List (1993)
6. The Wizard of Oz (1939)	6. Casablanca (1942)
7. The Graduate (1967)	7. Star Wars (1977)
8. On the Waterfront (1954)	8. Citizen Kane (1941)
9. Schindler's List (1993)	9. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
10. Singin' in the Rain (1952)	10. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
11. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)	11. Pulp Fiction (1994)
12. Sunset Boulevard (1950)	12. Rear Window (1954)
13. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)	13. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
14. Some Like it Hot (1959)	14. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
15. Star Wars (1977)	15. The Usual Suspects (1995)
16. All About Eve (1950)	16. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)
17. The African Queen (1951)	17. 12 Angry Men (1957)
18. Psycho (1960)	18. North by Northwest (1959)
19. Chinatown (1974)	19. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	20. Psycho (1960)

Of all the movies on either list listed here, I've seen Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, Gone with the Wind (more or less), Schindler's List, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (mostly), Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Pulp Fiction, and Raiders of the Lost Ark --- 11 out of 31 movies. 35%, which isn't such a nice percentage for someone considered somewhat of a movie buff. Then again, I wasn't even born yet when most of these films were released, so I think that's a relevant excuse. One of these days (yeah, when I have time) I should really watch The Godfather movies and Casablanca, and watch The Shawshank Redemption again because I can't remember it and it's a lot of people's favorite movie. So there you go.

Have any of you seen any of these movies? Which do you like or dislike, and which list do you agree with more closely?

So if we're picking topics...

...I'm thinking about the sections in a normal magazine, and realizing that I'm not really equipped to do movies, TV guide, sports, food, new in homes, wheels, financial times, or fashion. So I can do books and poetry, but I can't promise that they'll be new books or new poetry, just new to me.

Sound ok?

Ignore this

I just needed to make a new post to see if I'm adding this comment coding in properly...

Kostenlose HaloScan!

Further to the below, HaloScan does the same bloody thing. BUGGER. The login name is zerogravity. The password is the same as our e-mail's password. Someone. Please. Fix. http://www.haloscan.com

Kostenlose Shoutbox!

Is 'kostenlose' an expletive? Let's hope so.

This is a boring post of technical nature, since I'm not sure what I can/can't/should/shouldn't post about, but I've managed to (theoretically) set up a Shoutbox for the webpage. The Box ID for login on http://www.myshoutbox.com can be found at our group e-mail account, and it uses the same password as our e-mail account does, to make life easier.

The reason why the bloody Shoutbox isn't exactly appearing on the page is because when I try to add it to the left column, it makes all the fonts on the page absolutely massive. I don't know why, and I'm too lazy to figure out why, and it's midnight, and I'm knackered, and and and...

The point is that we do have one, but I don't have the technical expertise to set it up. So could one of you (Juliet? Pretty please?) copy and paste the code from our Shoutbox configuration to try to set the bloody thing up? *Sigh* (I'm now debating whether I ought to try my hand at setting up Haloscan commenting.) Apologies. End of post.

Thoughts on blog format

Just running some things up the flagpole to see who salutes:

-people post when they feel like it about whatever they want.
Pros: easy, low maintenance
Cons: we all already have blogs where we do that

-weekly/biweekly/monthly theme, each of us responds to the question or theme
Pros: learn new things about each other, makes it different from our own blogs, provides structure
Cons: provides structure, might get annoying

-we rotate days/weeks in which we post about what we're up to
Pros: provides structure, interesting to compare our lives
Cons: provides structure, might get boring (NOT that my study-for-a-midterm-eat-crap-food-write-an-essay-get-no-sleep life is BORING, not at all.)

-we make the blog about something (art/music/websites/recipes/origami/junk food/small dogs) and people post when they discover something new or something related
Pros: good information/interest resource, preferrably it would be about something we're all interested in
Cons: no information about ourselves, have to pick a topic that we ARE all actually interested in which might be more difficult than it seems

Or we could just ask Julie what she had in mind in the first place. *passes mike-slash-soapbox along to Juliet*

This feels a bit odd. I'm still trying to work out the concept of a 'group blog', and although it is a lovely idea, I haven't a clue what to post about. Are there rules? Are posts meant to have a particular theme? Is there anything I'm not allowed to post? Who is the audience? etc. and so forth.

The oddest thing, however, is not having access to the Settings or Template tabs. *Sigh* Was this done on purpose? I know I shouldn't be removing Roswell adverts when I feel like removing them, but being something of an aesthetic control freak, not having the ability to alter the Settings or Template is complete hell.

Other than that, I have little else to post about at this moment in time, although I must say that two minutes ago, I looked outside, and it was blindingly sunny. Two minutes later, the sun has unfortunately been replaced by a thick cloud cover and sheets of pouring rain. Wellies would be appropriate right now, but not adorable new silver ballet slippers...

Today I

bought a poster version of The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey.

I did several other things today, but this might have been the highlight.

It's a great poster, but it was also a very boring day.

...it's cool if I actually post in this thing, right guys? Are there...rules? Like "don't post things like that in a nice blog like this"?

P.S. My favourite Gashlycrumb Tiny is Neville, despite my namesake's presence.

1 down, 2 to go

Harumph.

What is the point of a comment system that tells you what time the comment was posted, but not what day it was posted on? Silly Blogger.

Anyway, got one of my friends to join (thanks, Flames!) and now I'm just waiting on the others. Hmm, I probably should have asked them to let me know either way whether they're going to join or not, so then I'd know how long to wait... but then, that would have made sense wouldn't it? Sigh. Anyhoo, one friend joining is better than no friends joining, I say. :)

falling w/o a parachute

I'm not exactly sure yet why I've made this new blog, considering the fact that I already have one (link). I'm planning, I think, to share it with at least one of my friends, or maybe a few of them -- trouble is, they all have blogs already, too (here, here, and here), so it may be a little redundant. Maybe none of us would have anything to say. But it still sounds like a damned interesting idea. To me, anyway. Call me crazy.

We'll see how this turns out...