Whose Faulty Vision

Will and Grace on Delta

I was on a Delta flight coming back from Atlanta last night. This was one of the older planes with a few TV screens for the whole cabin to watch, rather than the newer ones with little screens at every seat and multiple channels. I never watch the TV shows they broadcast (I bring my own TV shows, taken off of my MythTV box onto my PSP), but I noticed that one of the things they were showing this time was an episode of “Will and Grace.”

Now, I know how thoroughly the airlines censor the content on those shared TV screens, to make sure they don’t offend any of their passengers. So it says something about how far our society has come that they can show a TV show where the male lead is gay, and where many of the jokes and plotlines revolve around homosexuality. Maybe there’s hope yet.

Quote of the Whenever

Quote of the Whenever:

“The progress you don’t see because you didn’t allow change is as much a cost as the losses you do see because you did.”

-Bryan Caplan

The Departed’s Ending

(SPOILERS for “The Departed”)

So The Departed won a bunch of Oscars last night, including Best Adapted Screenplay. I have to say, I really wasn’t as impressed by The Departed as everyone else was. There were some great performances, but the screenplay bothered me. I thought that the story was muddled, with no clear arc. A bunch of stuff happened, but it didn’t really feel cohesive. This was exemplified by the ending.

There was a wonderful piece of humor writing, published in National Lampoon or some such, called “How to Write Good”. The essay had a number of tips on writing, including how to end your novel. If you’re writing a novel, and you can’t think of how to end it, just write, “Suddenly, everybody got run over by a truck. The End.” (If your novel is about trucks, you have to modify it to “Suddenly, everybody got run over by a monster truck. The End.”)

And that’s what “The Departed” felt like to me: “Suddenly, everybody got shot. The End.” There wasn’t any actual resolution of anything, just everybody dying.

I’m told that the original movie, “Infernal Affairs”, had a different ending. Maybe it had a more cohesive story in general–I should check it out.

Idea File: “I Wish They’d Warned Me”

This came out of a conversation I had with Christmas the other day. It would be a book, where the author had gone around to dozens of people from all walks of life and asked them, “What do you wish they’d warned you?” In her case, she was wishing that, before she started an academic career, they’d warned her that it means moving every few years, leaving your life and your friends behind, until you finally get a tenure-track position (and then tenure) somewhere.

What do you wish they’d warned you?

Blockbusted update

Update on the Blockbusted story:

I just called Blockbuster’s corporate office. The woman I spoke to said that Blockbuster’s corporate policy is that you should be able to sign up for just a membership, with no fee and no requirement to sign up for Blockbuster Online. She said that franchise stores have the choice to set their own policies, but that all corporate-owned stores should be following that rule. She also confirmed that my local store is corporate-owned, not a franchise, and should therefore be following the rules.

I then called my local store and spoke to the manager there. He confirmed that his store’s policy is to require Blockbuster Online signup. I told him that Blockbuster corporate policy was not to require Blockbuster Online signup, and he didn’t care. He said that “all the stores are doing it”. I reiterated that his policy was in violation of Blockbuster’s policy, and he refused to change his tune. Eventually I hung up in frustration.

I ended my last post with “Screw Blockbuster”, but I can’t go that far this time, since there seems to be a different policy at the corporate level. I can, however, urge everyone to avoid the Blockbuster store at:

21-61 31st Street (at Ditmars)
Astoria, NY
11105-2601

They are abusing their customers, in violation of their own company’s rules.

Chaucer’s Pickup Lines

Okay, for the serious lit geeks among us, here’s a great list of Chaucerian pick-up lines. A few personal favorites:

• Makstow a pilgrymage heere often?
• Woldstow haue me shyfte thyne voweles?
• Do sheriffs administere thee to those who breke the kinges peace? Bycause thou lookst “fyne.”
• Howe abovte a blancmange and the acte of Venus? Whatte, blancmange pleseth thee nat?

Blockbusted Linked

Thanks to Consumerist for linking to my story about Blockbuster trying to force me to sign up for its online service. From the comments, it sounds like this isn’t a company-wide policy, but just a rogue store. I keep meaning to call them and get an answer, since they never e-mailed me back, but I haven’t found the time yet.