Freakin' ridiculous.
I watched The Lady Vanishes tonight and it didn't take long to realize that I've seen a movie of identical plot very recently. Two travelers on a closed vehicle, one falls asleep and wakes to find the companion missing. There's a psychologist on the vehicle to convince the remaining traveler that she imagined her companion. One traveler writes in the steam of a window which later reappears to freak out the other traveler. That's not all, but it's enough to show that Flight Plan is such a rip-off of the Hitchcock classic and they should list the movie as a remake, not a reference to the original on IMDB. And to think, I believed Hollywood still had some original ideas in them!

Yay, my mom was the star interviewee for the OA News's article on the Fall Festival. What Auburnite doesn't have fond memories of the Fall Festival? Apparently my fond memories start from '83 when I assisted my mother at the duck pond. Good times.

Lisa, were you aware that your alma mater's student president has declared himself supreme ruler and declared war on Washington U? Why didn't Emory do something normal and attack one of the dozens of colleges in Atlanta? Georgia Tech, for example, has mostly unrequited hate for UGA (see lyrics to "To Hell With Georgia", "Ramblin Wreck", and "White and Gold"). I'm sure they could spare some hate and some t.p. for Emory.

Fabulous and informative site: Charity Navigator. I used a much less fancy site to pick Doctors Without Borders as my charity of choice earlier this year. This site is much cooler, and confirmed my choice. How can you go wrong when they give a star-rating instead of making you decide how much administrative spending is too much?
I know gas prices have everyone freaked, but maybe some people will get the charity-donating bug from donating to Katrina victims (the red cross got my pity money this time) and will start donating regularly. I'm living off a grad student assistantship, and I can afford a little something every month. I'm just saying...

The first positive news story coming out of New Orleans: A couple of bars and one restaurant are still open in the French Quarter. Best quote in the whole article:

"Those girls are town criers, they are making sure everyone has got the proper news. One of them is a stripper -- and she is a good one."

(link courtesy of FARK)

Is it wrong to bring yet another blog into the world just because I came up with a name I liked? Well anyway, I did it and I intend it to be a dumping ground of links on educational research or just education or just on being a graduate student. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Let's hope Bush and his handlers don't hear about the Thai PM's brilliant new idea.

(link courtesy of FARK)

Roger Ebert knows how to dish it out in his zero-stars review of the new Deuce Bigalow movie:

"...Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

(defamer has the back-story of the Schneider vs. Goldstein debacle here and here)

Fantastic idea: Temptation blocker allows you to block certain programs from yourself to increase productivity. I had a similar system in undergrad-- a piece of paper that said "get back to work" taped extensively over the monitor-- this is even more effective. It even blocks using ctrl+alt+delete so you can't just shut it off. Very clever!

(link via lifehacker my new favorite site)

Just asking...
What AHS c/o 2000 student (who claimed to have gone to college in the Sudan but definitely went to Auburn and just blatantly lied the whole time) got busted for second degree burglary and was hauled off to jail recently?

(all page six jokes aside, does anyone know who I'm talking about and have info about this? Laura advised not to post his name and Laura must be obeyed.)

I was just perusing my favorite site for reminiscing- Atlanta Time Machine- and saw this. Did anyone else know that there was an Atlanta White House? I know I never got around to doing touristy things while I lived there, but I've been all over Briarcliff. How did I miss that? It's kind of freaky. Maybe the "first lady" has a House of Yes Jackie-O complex.

Random comments on books and movies:
--War of the Worlds was an exciting movie, but the book trumps it by being both exciting and logical (and less than $4 at B&N).

--Despite what Ebert says about it, I want to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again just to watch Johnny Depp.

--Elizabeth (1998) was an exciting film. Having just finished The Life of Elizabeth I did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie at all, since the plot bore no resemblance to the actual life of Elizabeth I (at least as told by Alison Weir).

--It's Audrey Hepburn month on TCM. If you've never seen it, try to catch Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant because Cary Grant is the greatest and it's as good as a Hitchcock thriller (even better than some, dare I say).

Hilarious scathing toy review for the Human Torch ATV. I'll take the easy route and quote the same portions Defamer did:

"There has never been a more ridiculously stupid and insulting toy than the Fantastic 4 Human Torch ATV (with Light-Up Headlights!). And this is why:

The Human Torch has no need for an All-Terrain Vehicle because the last time I checked, the Human Torch can f--king FLY.

Has anyone told the Human Torch that it might not be safe to sit on top of a gas tank when one is on FIRE? Nice message to send the kids, assholes! ...

The Fantastic 4 Human Torch ATV also has light-up headlights! Good thing, because there's nothing more useless than dark-down headlights. What does the freaking Human Torch need with headlights anyway? HE'S ON FIRE!"

I saw the Fantastic Four stuff at Walmart the other day. Couldn't they come up with anything for Invisagirl and Bendy-guy (no clue what they're really called)? Maybe those had already sold out... Good thing I had no intention of watching this movie and/or buying invisible person costuming.

Thank goodness. After years of saying "Hotel California" is the worst, most overrated song ever, I found some support. Not on this list of Top 13 Most Overrated Songs, but in the FARK comments about that list. Three people meantioned "Hotel California" as deserving to be on that list. I take my validation where I can find it.

Need a research idea? 125 Questions: What we don't know from Science magazine may help. Most of them are boring, "important" questions about curing cancer and such, but others are about dinos!

"Why were some dinosaurs so large?
Dinosaurs reached almost unimaginable sizes, some in less than 20 years. But how did the long-necked sauropods, for instance, eat enough to pack on up to 100 tons without denuding their world?"

and black holes!

"What is the nature of black holes?
Relativistic mass crammed into a quantum-sized object? It's a recipe for disaster--and scientists are still trying to figure out the ingredients."

(courtesy of FARK)

I am no longer in love with Iowa. The winter may have been surprisingly mild, but it is crazy hot here this week (hitting 101 on Wednesday). Plus on Saturday, this freak storm rolled in from nowhere with 80 mph winds that nearly blew me away. (The gust was so strong I went into frantic foreigner mode and asked the Target security guard if there was a tornado. I expected Toto to fly by at any moment.)

Right up my alley- AFI ranks the top 100 movie quotes. The usual suspects are represented, though I'm sure I could come up with some good ones that aren't listed.

Does anyone else watch Bridezillas on WE? The first season was so great, I caught the reruns this past year religiously. The craziness was usually subtle and you could sense that the girls were trying to put their best foot forward, but were just too wonderfully NYC-neurotic to keep it all inside. I think the key was that the producers were setting out to chronicle fabulous NYC weddings, but ended up better able to sell the show by spinning it as Bridezillas (much to the dismay of their bride stars). When I learned how the show originated, I knew there would never be a good second season.

I was right.

The second season premiered last Sunday and it bit the big one. I knew it was over from the moment I saw their new ad (which is also the new intro song). They lost all the spirit of subtlety and mostly classy neuroticism, and just went for the nut-jobs. The focus of this first episode was a psychotic (read:typical) 19-year-old marrying her boyfriend of apparently 1-1.5 months. In the first season, it was obvious who was getting a divorce within the year, and it was fun. This was just sad. Too much yelling, too much crying, no style... don't bother. Hope for another marathon of old episodes.

More interesting perhaps than Angels and Demons, my love of all things English was indulged through a couple of books I read while I was home last month. The first, a work of fiction, was The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory which I whole heartedly recommend if you don't mind mixing historical fact with romance (or 650 page novels). It follows Mary Boleyn from 1521 until 1536, chronicling (in varying degrees of fiction) the intrigues of the Boleyn siblings in Henry VIII's court. Only one of the three Boleyns has a happy ending, as you may know.

Having read that book and wondering what was fact versus fantasy, I picked up The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir. She doesn't offer any credentials on her book covers, so I won't start citing her at conferences (not that APA would be particularly interested in my opinions on whether Henry VIII should have executed Anne Boleyn), but I assume she's not too far afield. For nonfiction, the book reads very much like a novel (which given the topic was probably not hard to do). It makes me want to head out to England for a little tomb and castle sightseeing.

Hilarious last item from the Daily Dish:
"Ashton Kutcher and MTV were really upset when one of their "Punk'd" missions - with rapper Lil Jon - backfired. Apparently MTV and Ashton spent a lot of money and months planning a secret operation. Lil Jon was supposed to be on a private plane to Las Vegas, but customs agents claimed he and his entourage were boarding a plane bound for Ecuador. Lil Jon was onto them within minutes. He recognized some of the actors posing as security, told Ashton to come out from the back of the plane, and said, "Come on, you can't punk the motherf--ing King of Crunk!" "