Bein' a Nerd

I am what once upon a time could be legitimately called a "nerd." I had a 3.95 GPA in high school and in college, and graduated with a degree in math and computer science. Now, being a "nerd" means liking video games and comic books, both of which I set aside in high school (I mean, I play the odd game of Dig Dug occasionally, and there are graphic novels I've enjoyed, but I don't have an Xbox or read X-Men). It annoys me that being a nerd no longer means being socially awkward and possessing intellectual curiosity, but consuming certain things deemed "nerdy" by an earlier generation.

Modest Mouse = Red Hot Chili Peppers

Modest Mouse are kind of my generation's (i.e. not quite Gen-Xers but not quite millenials) Red Hot Chili Peppers in that they're a band that started out interesting, but as they got more boring they got more successful. They even kind of sound like each other now... this sort of bland white people imitation of funk.

Inappropriate Songs

I was constantly amazed at how many ads in the 2000s had "Lust For Life" soundtracking them, given that it's a song about kicking heroin.  And now Johnny Walker has ads out soundtracked by Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi" which was later remade as "Jet Boy Jet Girl" by Elton Motello and The Damned with lyrics that... uh, would probably be approved of by Subway's Jared, if you get my drift. (As an aside... what a bizarre celebrity that guy had.  He was a dude who was really fat, decided to go on a diet mostly consisting of garbage faux-deli food, lost a bunch of weight because he was mostly eating terrible, shitty sandwiches, then became their spokesman).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQKyMZ8gsPI

Pixar

People say about Pixar, "they make films meant for children that adults can appreciate" and my feeling is exactly the opposite. They have made a few movies that were more expressly for kids, like Finding Nemo (which is their third highest grossing movie, because, sadly, the reason most people go to the movies anymore is for a temporary respite from their kids that doesn't require a babysitter) but three of their five top grossing movies are Toy Story 3, Inside Out, and Up, three incredibly sad movies that I can't imagine anyone under 12 could fathom. I mean, the themes are loss of innocence, loss of joy, loss of a partner. When I saw Inside Out this summer, I looked around, and every adult was crying, and all the kids were looking at them confusedly.

{Parenthetical Aside}

I had an English teacher in high school who would constantly make fun of me for writing long sentences with lots of (parenthetical asides).  Then, Infinite Jest came out, which is by a far better writer than me, (David Foster Wallace) but who wrote in long sentences with a lot of parenthetical asides and even end-notes (there's something like 200 pages of end-notes in Infinite Jest - I read 'em all). So take that, English teacher whose name I can't even remember! The way I write turned into a bestselling, critically acclaimed book... by an author who went on to hang himself in his mid-40s.  I guess if you write in long sentences or short sentences (a la Hemingway) you're going to kill yourself.  Mid-sized sentences are the way to go.

The Phantom Awakens

I'm starting to get a little nervous that The Force Awakens might not be so hot, largely based on the international trailer in which Finn and Rey (the protagonists) introduce each other in the most staid manner possible, and we get to hear more of the cartoonish mechanical bad-guy voice in which Kylo Ren (the villain) speaks.

I waited with friends outside a theater for several hours to see The Phantom Menace its opening night and the aftermath was... we sort of stood around for a bit kind of mumbling "I guess that was OK."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XNit858b6I

No More Nekkid

http://www.inquisitr.com/2506138/playboy-wants-tina-fey-to-pose-nude-in-their-last-naked-issue/

I have a couple of thoughts on this:

1. namely why Playboy's reaction to the preponderance of nudity on the internet is... no nudity for us?  It never had that much nudity to begin with.  I bought a copy of the January '77 Playboy (my birth month) on a road trip and a female friend found it and was like "I thought Playboy was just wall-to-wall naked women... this is almost all articles"

2. I kind of hope Tina Fey goes for it, and it outsells every Playboy from the last 20 years or so (it probably will because it's the last one with nudity and every idiot who thinks that it will be their "collectable" goldmine in a few years (it won't - buy a faberge egg instead) will buy it) just to show that the reason they're failing is the fact that men with heterosexual leanings (of which I am one) like women who aren't 21 year old blondes with fake tits.