A little while ago when I dedicated an entry to seminal films from my youth, I forgot a big one: Bucakroo Banzai Director On Why We Never Got That Sequel | Giant …
The gang at Cracked.com offer up their list of: The 5 Most Awesomely Bad Comic Book Movies How could Cookie Monster have missed the made-for-t.v. Dr. Strange and Justice League of America? Well, we’ll rectify that eventually. Also, how did Supergirl NOT make this list?
Also, as if Hancock wasn’t dark enough…article_20377_7-classic-movies-that-almost-had-absurdly-dark-endings.html.
Apparently the blondie is the new brownie: http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2013/01…trends-for-2013 I’m already all over gochujang but I’ve got to get me one of those cemitas!
No. Really. Bags of Nuts Recalled for Failing to Disclose the Presence of Nuts
Head on over to SFSignal.com for a chance to win a copy of the superhero-themed anthology Superheroes containing stories from the likes of Kelly Link, Peter S. Beagle, and yours truly: GIVEAWAY (Worldwide): Win a Copy of the Super-Cool Anthology SUPERHEROES edited by Rich Horton!
The Ultimate Guide to This Summer’s Science Fiction and Fantasy TV Not sure Breaking Bad classifies as SF, but I’m certainly looking forward to its final season.
Oh No They Didn’t: Seven Jaw-Dropping Science Fiction TV Cliffhangers Anything to add?
Via Boing Boing: List of British words not widely used in the United States Codswallop you say?
In preparation for its return: 53 ‘Arrested Development’ Jokes You Probably Missed
And some worthy causes:
Good list of cliff hangers. The ones I hate are those called “let’s put everyone in peril while we negotiate contracts.” Those given that I had seen were good.
However, they LEFT OUT STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION.. “The Best of Both Worlds” for crying out loud.
Blondie better than brownie? No way! Brownies rule!
I love brownies too much to consider blondies as replacement – no way, I say!
Since you were talking about super heroes in film, and since super hero comic books are not my forte, where would you place the film, “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”?
This is looooong. Will ‘splain at the end.
Regarding the ‘List of British words not widely used in the United States’…
I went through the list and found that I use about 30% of those words, and understand most though I may not use them.
Brit words on the list that are part of my everyday language…
Arse, amongst, gumption, handbag, cuppa, daft, dodgy, brolly, shite, bin (for trash can), gabby, git, greasy spoon, knickers, nutter, oi/oy, one-off, peckish, pinch, loo, pub, rubbish (as in, worthless), mouthing off, poxy, bloke, lift (elevator), randy, rumpy pumpy, shag, pinch, snog, shop, telly, wanker, whilst, spot on, sticky wicket, straight away, caravan (trailer), spanner (wrench), fiver, tenner, nappy, petrol, nosh, footie, footpath, offal, cheeky, proper, sleeping policeman, sack (as in, fired), bugger (various forms), row (argument), and brass monkey (as in, freeze the balls off a).
I have no idea how the above words came to be part of my vocabulary. Some maybe because my grandmother was from the south and so maybe she had an influence. Others because I watch a lot of Brit tv and have just picked them up along the way. Some, like petrol and spanner, I don’t use often but instead use them to spice up the way of saying things when I feel particularly creative.
The following words I use regularly now, and I know exactly where I picked them up:
Car park (Inspector Lewis)
Green fingers (Ground Force)
Skip (Ground Force)
Hoover (The Young Ones)
Slippy (Keira Knightly interview ten years ago)
Pear-shaped (Ground Force…I watched a LOT of Ground Force)
Bob’s your uncle (Pirates of the Caribbean: CotBP)
Rogering (Thin Blue Line)
Plaster (Horatio Hornblower “I’ve put plasters on them, sir” – Still makes me 😆 . )
Jumper (rugby)
Kit (rugby)
Nosy Parker (Agatha Christie books)
Anorak (Inspector Lewis)
Fairy lights (Ground Force and/or Changing Rooms)
Gaffer tape (the original Scrapheap Challenge, called Junkyard Wars in the US)
Drink driving (Inspector Lewis – I made fun of the way the Brits say it, and now I say it this way all the time 😛 )
There are others, including British words not on the list that I use quite often, like bloody (WAY too often), willy (it’s just the best word for that thing!), wonky, barmy, beastly, blooming (as in, blooming idiot), chat up, bum, cheers (for goodbye or thank you), dishy, fancy (as in, desires), gutted, knock up (NOT what you think!), smarmy, glove box (not compartment), copper, namby pamby, naughy bits, spots/spotty (for pimples), flat (apartment), mobile (for cellphone), aluminium, football (soccer), and local (for pub).
I also spell a lot of words the British way (though I often go back and forth between the British and American way, sometimes in the same sentence!). Words that often end up ‘British’ are things like grey instead of gray, the aforementioned aluminium, and words using double els like travelled and cancelled, and I add that ‘u’ in words like humour and behaviour (it just looks better to me), and I usually add the ‘ue’ to words like catalogue.
However, I usually stick with the American spelling of ‘ce/se’ words, like defense instead of defence, as well as using the ize/yze spelling instead of the ise/yse spellings (e.g. realize/realise, and analyze/analyse). I rarely use ‘re’ instead of ‘er’, except sometime when spelling litre, or theatre – it just depends on my mood, or sometimes who I’m writing to. I only use the ae/oe spelling when writing formally about a scientific subject, like archaeology, but more often than not I don’t bother with the extra letter. I also prefer the American way of dropping the ‘e’ in words like aging, but prefer the British way of retaining the ‘e’ in words such as ‘likeable’, but usually drop it anyway because the ‘e’ rules get confusing and it’s just easier to leave it out when in doubt. 🙂
So, anyways…
I went to bed around 9 and then woke up about 2ish, and decided to stay awake because I feel like crap, and it’s worse (imho) to feel like crap when you’re trying to sleep than when you’re awake. I’m typing this in an attempt to distract myself from whatever I have caught from Mr. Das – a.k.a. Snotty McSniffles. A cold? Bronchitis? It started with a tickle-cough on Thursday – I thought it was allergies – and now it’s…I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I’ve been sick twice in the past two months, and that’s not good. I’m hoping I’m not going to have one of those bouts with illness like I had three years or so ago – I can’t go through that again. I’m going back to bed now, and when I wake up if I’m not feeling better I’m going to the doctor. Or back to bed. I don’t know yet. 😛
das
I was actually reading that “best of the worst” article on the train yesterday and immediately thought of you. I thought about pointing it out in your comments but then I remembered you were the reason I read Cracked in the first place and figured you’d already seen it.
Curse you, Joe Mallozzi, for linking to articles on Cracked.com!
*three hours later*
“How could Cookie Monster have missed the made-for-t.v. Dr. Strange and Justice League of America? Well, we’ll rectify that eventually. ”
Great.
“However, they LEFT OUT STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION.. “The Best of Both Worlds” for crying out loud.”
Totally agree on that. Yeesh!
Oh man, I had written a whole thing on Best of Both Worlds and then it went *poof* when I hit “something”. Definitely the best SciFi cliffhanger EVER! It would have been fun had the movie theater not been stupid. They left the lights on, argued on turning them off (they finally did when everybody went nutso), started;an hour late for showing a film about the remastering (peppered with silly pictures of people in Borg costumes), the sound kept cutting out, everybody was getting bored, blah blah blah. We decided to stay to watch the bloopers when Best of Both Worlds ended, and that went badly when they screwed up the sound, stopped the whole thing, re-started, screwed it up again (this time with sound from commercials) and finally everybody got up and left. The whole thing left me wishing that Quark’s in Vegas was still open. 🙂
We’ve put the Cemitas Puebla on our list of places to eat while in Chicago in August, so we’ll take pics and tell you all about it then. 🙂
Blondies are just big cookies, right? I’ll eat most any kind of brownies. My favorite brownie recipe came from a local Memphis Coffee shop called Bluff City. http://ilovememphisblog.com/2013/01/how-to-make-bluff-city-coffees-amazing-brownies/
Oh my, I think the brownie recipe was finally accepted by word press. I hope someone enjoys the recipe. I make a batch nearly every week. I cut back on the butter and can’t tell any difference in the finished product.
Those were some interesting links you found. Once again, I’m disgusted about how prejudicial people are about pit bulls. Pit Bulls need a P.R. agent. (Who does Kobe Bryant? 😉 ) Even my 17 year old said something negative about the breed. I tried to set him straight. He’s against the breed but he’s never been around them. I suspect that is what is going on with Dutch, Sarge and Thunder.
Interesting about British English. I was exchanging Twitters with an U.K. writer about the widening evolution of the English Language. For example, we call suspects Unsubs and I believe he said English police called them Unknown Suspects. In that case, our word sounds better. How far do you think the progression will go? Will it be like Old English?
G’day all!
“…and I add that ‘u’ in words like humour and behaviour (it just looks better to me), and I usually add the ‘ue’ to words like catalogue.”
*loves Das* Of course, it really is the “correct” (i.e. Canadian) way. 😉
@ gforce – I’m a bit of an Anglophile – I guess from watching a lot of Brit tv growing up – which makes me a bit more Canadian-friendly than the average ‘American’. In fact, I would love to live in Canada, if not for the fact that I’m not too good with change. 😛
NEWS OF NOTE! I am now offering a place to live for hot dudes expelled from Saudi Arabia….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/omar-borkan-al-gala-deported-photos_n_3163282.html
🙂
das
Lots to read here, Joe. As for the sci fi cliffhangers: it’s been so long since I saw any of them that I can’t remember which of them had the greatest impact. I’ve started watching Defiance and like it so far; it’s even got a race of pale, long-haired guys for das! It’s nice to have some new sci-fi on ScyFy. Yeah, I know they were idiots to let Stargate go, but things are looking up a bit now.
Cemitas! Those sound good. And there is a place not far from me. Hey JeffW and Sylvia: http://www.cemitaspuebla.com/ I think this should be our inaugural foodie trip for the year. And I need more macarons so I may need to make another trip to Vanille.
@Tam Dixon: Never really liked blondies – always found them lacking in flavor (read: chocolate), so thanks for that brownie recipe!
@das: hope you feel better today.
Oh, drat. Formatting error again.
@das, hope you are feeling better.
I loved that English words link, but I think I like it better when I heard the words spoken, great the British accent, and Australian also, Scottish and Irish are great also so neat to listen to, and uh Joe, Canadian is also not bad, eh!
Brownies are duh,,brown,,hah, so maybe not a blondie fan here, thanks for the recipe link Tam, really looks delicious.
Any cliffhanger is not a fun thing, although we can make up our own endings and do that thing where they bum lots of money and make another show. right?!?
More british words: “sorted”, “CBA”, and “pudding”.
@Sparrow_hawk:
You have great timing…Barb and I were discussing setting up a foodie visit to a Neapolitan pizzeria and sending out a foodie invite:
http://spaccanapolipizzeria.com/
Cemitas looks great, though, so lets do that first. I’ll put our available dates on the foodie tour tomorrow and we’ll see what dates we can work out.
@Das: We would be honoUred to have you here!
@Das:
How about Windscreen (instead of Windshield)?
Barb and I lived in the UK in the late 90’s for three years (about 2-hours west of London, near Bristol).
The first few months Barb and I were there I kept getting myself into trouble with seemingly innocuous statements like “Barbara brought her fanny-pak today” (apparently “fanny” is a not so complementary slang term for a part of a woman’s anatomy…hint, it’s NOT the rear-end). And I elicited some laughter at work when I announced that I needed to buy myself some “pants” (women’s underwear) when I should have said “trousers”.
I also ran into trouble when trying to run meetings. I would say things like “Let’s table that”, which has the opposite meaning for the Brits; “to table” something meant to put it on the table for discussion right now, not to delay it until later.
It’s been said that the Americans and British are a common-people separated by a common-language. That’s pretty true from what I’ve observed.
@ DP – Oh, I say sorted, too. Heh. 🙂
@ Airelle & Sparrowhawk – Feeling so-so. Running a low grade fever, too. I think it might be the flu because last week, before I had any symptoms, my knees and legs were absolutely killing me for no reason. I suspect I was sick then and didn’t realize it.
Still, even though I’m under the weather I had to make dinner. I made mixed veggies (granted, they were frozen), and butternut squash risotto (granted, it was from a box – but hey! I’m sick!), and lemon dijon chicken – from scratch! It was delicious! A little fresh lemon juice, tarragon, white wine, dijon mustard, fresh garlic, and chicken broth – very yummy! If that doesn’t fix me up, nothing will!
Also, I’m running out of rugby matches to watch, and sudoku puzzles to solve. Mebbe I should tackle my backlog of reading…but for some reason reading feels like it takes more effort than watching tv and doing puzzles. Weird, no?
Anyhoo…between rugby matches I’ve been watching an NCIS marathon, and now a Psych marathon is coming on Ion, so off to watch that. I’ll probably fall asleep, but that’s okay because the Crusaders (my team!) v Rebels match comes on at midnight, and I want to watch that one live.
One nice thing about being sick…I can sleep when I want, and be awake when I want. I am going to be sooo spoiled by Monday!! 😀
das
@ gforce – If I ever make it across the pond, I’m staying! Also, I’d probably want to live in Scotland…the Highlands, in particular, somewhere around Inverness. I just can’t get in a plane (long story), so to get over there I’d have to take a boat, and that’s not always a round trip deal. But it doesn’t matter because right now I can’t afford to travel, so I must rely on good British tv and books. 🙂
@ JeffW – I’ve never used windscreen, but I have referred to my trunk as the boot.
My niece (who used to visit here) has some funny stories about one of her first trips to England. Like the time when she was with a bunch of guys she said she didn’t have any pants (she was wearing a dress at the time and had no ‘pants’ to change into). She was very embarrassed when she realized what she had said. 😛 And then there was the time a British (male) friend said to our very straightlaced American (also male) friend that he would ‘knock him up in the morning’. Talk about an awkward silence. 😆
Oh, and yes…’fanny’. A fanny pack would mean something TOTALLY different in England! 😆 Ewww. It’s a bumbag, which – of course – makes me think of those little bundles on a pole that hobos used to carry in the old movies.
Funny how we speak the same language, and yet, we don’t. 🙂
das
Das: a.k.a. Snotty McSniffles. I tried snorting laughing, but I, too, have this same cold/bronchitis/sinusitis/whatever the hell it is.