Requiem: Food processor.

Oh humble and hard-working food processor, I’ve had you since 2001.  You were my first appliance purchased after I moved to Portland.  And now your top has disintegrated, leaving me unable to convince you to grate the Fels-Naptha to make the laundry detergent.
I’m hoping I can purchase a replacement, because your motor is still running like a champ, so this may not be a final requiem.

Various things from the paper today.

From an article about getting your child off to college.

Here’s what I remember of my college application process.  At some point, I went to the library and researched some schools to go to.  I also got a postcard in the mail for a women’s college.  I sent away for more information.  The information arrived and I applied.  I asked my teachers for recommendations, I filled out the forms, I wrote and proofed the essay.  I got a money order for the application fee which I paid for out of my Pizza Hut earnings.  I got in.  I showed my parents the letter and asked if I could go.  They said yes.  I went.  I did not have SAT prep classes, (in fact, I did quite poorly on the SAT and then tried harder on the ACT) I did not have my parents reminding me of my various deadlines.  I wanted to go to school and I did what I had to do to go.  Do these children who need the post-its and reminders really want to go to college?  Maybe the college application process is the time to find out just how badly they want to go. By letting them do it themselves.

I don’t think there really is such a thing as Poncho Perfect. 
(That said, I kind of like the purple one in the middle.)

Did Jeremy Renner really have a desk when he was in the middle of filming “The Avengers”?  Does it come standard in his trailer?  What else does he do at his desk during filming?
I guess maybe he could, but I think this is lazy writing, employing a cliche instead of using description.  Standards people.  Standards.

Three Sentence Movie Reviews: Gone Girl

This movie has not one, not two, but three meaty parts for women.* In another stunning turn of events, the gender equilibrium from the book was translated exactly, with no maximization of the male’s story at the expense of the female’s.  At two and a half hours, this still managed to be a roller coaster, even for me, who just read the book last month.

Where watched: St. Johns Cinema with Kelly
Cost:  $7.00

*I normally have to watch 20 movies to find three such well written and acted roles.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/gone_girl_ver2.html

So how do you fund your schools?

Here in the United States, we make children sell things in order to have fun things in their school.  No one wants to buy this crap, but they do, because who doesn’t want to support the neighborhood children on a mission?  So there is then more crap in the world, and entire industries make money off this endeavor.  Enough to send a sample kit in the mail.  
I have an idea!  Why not fully fund our children’s education?  Then no one would have to purchase things they don’t want and the children wouldn’t have to sell things.
I’m happy to say that the school at which I work does not do fundraiser of this nature.  That’s one school down, and many, many more to go.

Wrinkled newspaper.

It’s weird, the way the paper arrives.  Rather than just stacking all the sections in the middle and folding once, there are various configurations of sections and often just the front page is wrapped around a stack of sections.  This leaves the front page rather wrinkled and strained. This was something that was never a problem, before the advent of the tabloid format.

Three sentence movie reviews: Repo Man

Part of the Ruby Oliver Film Festival *

This has to be the most punk-rock movie I’ve ever seen as it refused to adhere to the conventional movie narrative.  Is it sci-fi, or action/adventure or biting social commentary?  It comes with a great soundtrack and will keep you interested.

Cost: free from library
Where watched:  at home.

*This movie is part of E. Lockheart’s list of top 10 movies and I’d be interested to hear why she likes it.

poster from:  http://www.impawards.com/1984/repo_man_xlg.html
The amount of text on this poster is crazy!

Three sentence movie reviews: Ruby Sparks

This was recommended by Jeff, who noted my intense adoration of Zoe Kazan in What If, and I’m going to say straight off that I liked it.  I think it’s incorrectly categorized as a romantic comedy as the darker premise has it headed straight for drama territory.* By the time it ended, I was angerly shoving it into that genre where men get to write all the movies and then was shocked to discover the author of this very interesting look at relationships was none other than female lead Zoe Kazan, which completely blew my mind and changed what I thought of the movie.**

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

*Note to people who decide these things:  Just because there is ROMANCE in a movie doesn’t automatically make it a romantic comedy.  Even if there are funny and sweet parts to the movie.
**Which made me wonder how I would have responded to this movie had I known from the beginning a woman wrote it.

poster from:  http://www.impawards.com/2012/ruby_sparks.html
I’ve got too much going on at the end of the year to give awards to posters of movies I’ve watched, but if I did, this would be a top finisher.  It correctly sums up this movie in an enticing way.

Excellent parsing of words.

Said by a mom at school to her third-grade daughter:

“It’s not about him being a man, it’s about him having a skill I don’t have.”

I was so excited by that phraseology I grabbed for a paper and pen to write it down.  In my ideal world, people would have skills and the gender of the person performing a skill wouldn’t matter.