07 December 2011

My Husband is Brad Pitt

No, not really, but the husband refuses to let me use his real name or post his photo on the blog because he's an anti-social freak. To this day, I do not have a proper photo with the husband - just obscene hand gestures and silly faces, like so:

Ah, the finger. How original!

(The above facsimile has not been approved by the husband so let's keep this between ourselves, shall we?)

Since I'm banned from using his real name (Jeff), and because "the husband" is so impersonal and cold, from this point forth, I shall refer to the husband as Brad Pitt.

Speaking of Mr. Pitt (the real one, not the husband), I was inspired to make a visual retrospective of my favorite Brad Pitt movie roles.



Sweet baby jesus




Thelma & Louise















Stoner Floyd


True Romance









Worst. Irish. Accent. Ever. 


Snatch










Psycho Pitt



Twelve Monkeys










Finding-my-wife's-severed-head-in-a-box Pitt




Seven















Licking of computer screen permitted. 



Fight Club















You're very welcome.

28 November 2011

How I Spent Black Friday

It wasn't at the friggin' mall, that's for certain. Only lunatics leave the house on Black Friday. Don't these people know they can get that same shit on-line? What they sacrifice in tactile viscerality (I just made up that word), they save in gas money, sales tax, elbows to the face, and sanity points by shopping on-line. But you know this already - I'm preaching to the choir, am I right?

Anyhoo, look at these gems I found on Etsy. My shopping list is complete! Finished a month early!

Self high-five!!


Handmade Art Doll
Guaranteed to scar the child in your life with recurring nightmares. (If that's what you're aiming for.)




Maris the Mermaid Cloth Art Doll
Apparently, there's this burgeoning underground movement of all things mermaid as evidenced here. Fine, whatever. You like mermaid crafts, and I don't. To each her own. The thing that has me scratching my head, though, is how anyone in good conscience can charge $20 for Maris here when it looks like the seller's six-year old niece fashioned her from leftover Bratz dolls and a burlap sack.




27 November 2011

Currently Viewing - "Captain America: The First Avenger"

My expectations were preeetty low when I heard that they were making a Captain America movie, because who is a more boring super hero than Captain America? Superman, that's who. With Captain being a close second. I expected this to crash harder than the morning after an all-night blow binge. Not that I would know what that's like. (Because, really, I don't.) Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

It's earnest and old-fashioned, told completely without irony or tongue-in-cheekiness, and that's part of its charm. Of course, the plot is preposterous but the film takes care to build the Steve Rogers' character and motivations. And the CGI used to make Chris Evans (who is 6 feet in real life) into a 5-foot, 6-inch, 90 pound weakling is top-notch seamless.

(Fast forward to after the credits roll for a sneek peek at The Avengers movie.)


Captain America: The First Avenger
Netflix: Captain America: The First Avenger





Title: Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011
Director: Joe Johnston
Starring: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Le Jones, Hugo Weaving

21 November 2011

Currently Viewing - "The Tree of Life"

A meandering musing on the origins and meaning of life, and man's standing/purpose in the vastness of the universe.  I've enjoyed all of Terrence Malick's films but I'm thinking this one is only for Malick-o-philes. Beautiful cinematography, as always - it's like an impressionistic painting unfolding in live action. Watching a Malick movie is a little like being in a dream. Ambitious, flawed, powerful, evocative, frustrating - The Tree of Life is all this and more, but if you're open to the film's undulating rhythm and the ideas it's trying to tackle, you may find yourself sucked in.



Netflix:The_Tree_of_Life


Title: The Tree of Life, 2011
Director: Terrence Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, Sean Penn

16 November 2011

Of Poop and Circumstance

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit to my obsession with poop. Specifically, the disbursement or dissemination and the acceptable receptacle of said poop.

In the building where I work, the route to access the ladies room (this is a misnomer because there's nothing ladylike about what occurs in the women's water closet) takes you down the hallway to a mini-kitchen (complete with refrigerator, sink, and microwave). As you walk through the mini-kitchen, the bathroom door is a mere TWO FEET from the microwave. (I know, GROSS, right?) So, if someone had just taken a particularly noxious #2, AND at the same time, an unsuspecting employee were to be microwaving her lunch, imagine if you will the awkward moment when the dumper opens the bathroom door to the poor recipient who had just taken her Lean Cuisine out of the microwave. Now, imagine if you are the dumper – how would you handle this situation? Do you avoid eye contact as you slink away? Do you own up to that smell and do the “oh well” shrug? What is the appropriate response in this situation? Is there one?

One of my life's unbreakable rule is: NEVER EVER use a public bathroom to take a dump. (There are exceptions to this rule which I will explain below.)

Two reasons why:
1.   Public toilets are disgusting. If I could, I would Lysol down the seat and surrounding area, lay down 5 layers of those disposable paper seats, and then, only then would I deem it safe to sit. As it is, I don't carry Lysol with me nor are the paper seats always available, so I squat when I pee. I could squat all day. I have very strong quad muscles. But as everyone knows, one cannot squat and dump. It's physiologically impossible. One time, when I was in a stall peeing, someone entered the adjacent toilet, and I look underneath the divider with horror as this person drops trou and sits right down on the seat without any prepping like it ain't no thang. Gah, that's disgusting. I knew a girl once who caught crabs by sitting right on a naked public toilet seat and that is why I don't sit on public toilets.

2.   Public toilets are disgusting. See Reason #1. 'Nuff said.

Word of the Moment

onomatopoeia the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.

This word makes me cross-eyed - it should be etymologically illegal to have four vowels in a row, but I enjoy the definition of the word.

01 November 2011

Would You Rather…?

Last night, while slurping on corn chowder, the husband turns to me and says,

Husband: Would you rather...

We've played this game before. I'm not a fan of it because it forces disturbing images into my head that can only be scrubbed away with bleach and phosphoric acid.

Husband (cont.): ...have sex with Harvey Keitel or Danny Devito?

I look up from my Entertainment Weekly, slightly annoyed because I’m in the middle of reading about Kim Kardashian's ginormous ass and how it almost swallowed her sister Khloe.

Me (sighing): I don't want to play.

Husband: Come on. Indulge me.

Me: Neither.

Husband: You have to pick one. Them's the rules.

Me: Brad Pitt.

Husband: Not an option. Keitel or Devito?

Me: No. They're both gross.

29 October 2011

Word of the Moment

nom de plume - literally, a pen name


This is a fun word to say. Especially when said in a Pepe le Pew French accent -- nohm duh ploooom. Now you try it. Fun, right?

19 October 2011

Virgin Post

Blogger cherry popped. No tears. No pain. No spotting on sheets. And even gentle spooning afterwards. Excellent.

Wackadoo Stew will primarily be a repository for creative writing exercises shrouded in pop culture musings, books and movies recommendations, (mein) photographs, attempts at pithy introspective discourses (with myself) and miscellaneous narcissistic commentary on my life. In short, pretty much anything that grabs my fancy.

Just a sidenote on the narcissistic element of personal blogging -- I have to admit, this process does not come naturally to me. I'm the type of person that would rather blend into the wallpaper than call attention to myself, which is completely incongruous with why (aspiring) writers are compelled to write. The notion of posting on the internet is terrifying, to bare one's ego to the anonymous e-public to be judged, criticized, vilified, drawn and quartered. (Yes, in my head, it is still the Middle Ages). But an aspiring writer does not (should not) write in a vacuum. An aspiring writer writes to have their words be read, or else, what's the point?

So, this blog is my personal project to vomit words onto the interwebz and see what sticks. Cue the daunting task of filling the empty spaces.










What's that Wordsworth quote? "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." Breathings of your heart...? Sounds like a bad Harlequin novel. Yeah, not quite. If only it was as easy as breathing one's heart onto the page. For me, it feels more like this quote by Kurt Vonnegut: "When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth." Case in point - it took me three days to write/revise/edit/polish this measly post (and I'm still not satisfied).

So, dear reader, if you have stumbled upon this blog by accident, thanks in advance for taking the time to peruse and I hope you come back again. I am making it my goal to amuse you.