"I yam a jalapeno onna steeek."

[mikailborg]

raininva and I went to the Virginia Beach Funny Bone to see Jeff Dunham tonight. Lots of you might have caught part of his act, because he's been doing it for a while - I swear I saw him on "Solid Gold" once. I haven't laughed that hard since the first time I saw Eddie Izzard do his act. The tickets were pricier than usual, so it's good to leave feeling like we got our money's worth.

Our oil heater, once again, isn't working right. In what I think is an intentional snub, it's getting air in the line and failing every time the weather gets cold out. I woke up this morning to a 50-degree house. On the bright side, I got a couple points to spend in "Driver's Seat Replacement" today and made the skill check just fine. Rain's Pontiac should be much more comfortable to drive, now.

A few weeks ago, I bought the first book of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, thinking if the first one was any good, I'd buy the rest. It seems Pullman knew I would do this, because the first book isn't a bad start at all, but the second two fall apart almost immediately. The books are being marketed to the Harry Potter crowd, but while Rowling does a fair job of writing about adult themes from an adolescent's viewpoint, Pullman tries to stuff in philosophical observations of the nature of good and evil, the way that people's souls change over time, and a literal war to destroy Heaven. Throw in a large cast of characters we're given no reason to care about, and I'm reminded of Steve Martin's line: "I've written a number of children's books. Not on purpose."

Gregory Maguire's "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" is a slightly better read, but only if you are willing to assume that everything you saw in the movie (I haven't read the original books) was a propagandist's lie. At this point in my reading, the WWW isn't any more evil than your average misunderstood goth chick, while the Wizard is a fascist dictator bringing all the worst kinds of "progress" to Oz. If the writing wasn't pretty decent, I think I might have moved on from this one by now... and I can't imagine this being the Broadway musical that's it's been adapted into.

It'll take a while to load, but you should watch this Flash animation. Any non-geeks on my friends list (are there any?) may understand the rest of us a little better :)

Speaking of web video... Rube Goldberg meets Half-Life 2 in the "Doctor Breen Butt-Kicking Machine".

Oh, and over the course of Thursday and Friday, I put 22 hours in at work. Yeek.

Comments

[meiran.livejournal.com]

Oh, random because I just actually um...read past the Jeff Dunham part.

Pullman I could never get in to. I tried, I really did. But it just...I dunno, never grabbed me. Which made me sad because Cyn loves those books.

Wicked I was only slightly more in favor of. Honestly, I thought the book was too...something. *tries to think of the right word* forced? Probably not. There was just something about it that didn't quite ring right with me, and made it choppy and more difficult. I think the author was almost trying too hard.

I do want to see the musical, if only because it sounds like they took a FABULOUS premise and made it something more than the all-over-the-place the book is.