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Emergency midday lunch break post!

I saw this graph on icanhascheezburger this morning while I was checking blogs and brushing my teeth… and was still giggling about it when I got to work.

I just had a chance to look at the actual site - Graph Jam - during my lunch break - H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S! How did I not know about this site?! Why don’t you people tell me about these things?! I immediately added it to my reader.

The subtitle for the site is “Pop Culture for People in Cubicles.” The site contains funny graphs about… pop culture. That is it. I have a feeling Steven will love it. He loves making graphs and charts in excel. Sometimes, I think he loves excel more than me.

Here are a few of my favorite graphs:

Update: It is also radioactive girl’s birthday today! Happy Birthday! Wow… July’s the month to get busy!

There are four blogger birthdays this week (that I know of!). Today is Diane’s, so Happy Birthday Diane! (And feel better soon!) Friday belongs to Gina and sizzle. So… Happy Early Birthday Gina and Happy Early Birthday sizzle! And Lisa’s is this week as well… Happy Birthday Lisa!

And… I want to tell you about the book I bought Gina for her birthday. I have this little problem with thumbing through quite a bit of the books I buy for my friends… hey, it happens.

I read about Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure in some magazine I got in the mail in March. The premise of the book is, you guessed it, six-word memoirs of authors. Some of my favorites are:

“No shit I’m critical - you’re flawed.” - Elizabeth Koch

“I am awfully bored at work.” - Chris Ponchak

“Didn’t fit in then; still don’t.” - Bob Fingerman

“Asked to quiet down; spoke louder.” - Wendy Lee

Of course, I could go on and on… I recommend picking up a copy of the book, just because these memoirs really make you think.

Right before I bought the book I found out that another blogger - Freak Magnet - created her own six-word memoir on her blog! What a fun idea for us bloggers! Has this gone around all ready and I missed it? I’ve seen it a few other places since I originally wrote this post…

Anyway, here’s mine, which took a while to think up. Please share yours in your blog, or in the comments!

Always known as “the loud one.”

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Today’s Idiom: Pyrrhic victory - a too costly victory

Getting our neighbors to quiet down was a Pyrrhic victory - we now live in peace inside our home, but are uneasy being outside our home… and I feel guilty for being so spiteful and mean-spirited.

Originally, I thought liking musicals films was an all or nothing thing - you either liked them or you didn’t.

So I thought I was in the “like” category - I really like Moulin Rouge (for obvious reasons, SJ), Rent, and classics like The Sound of Music, Grease and White Christmas. But then I saw Hairspray… and despised it so much I wanted to stab a pen into my ears and eyes to stop the horror. I put myself in the “dislike” category and figured new musical films just aren’t for me.

Before seeing being tortured by that movie, my older brother told me he really wanted to see Across the Universe, the Beatles-based musical film set in the 1960s, when he came to Chicago in the fall. I was all gung-ho and excited to see it, but then he had to cancel.

He and I both never saw the movie, and it left theaters. Then, after seeing Hairspray and feeling just a bit pessimistic, I though, “It’s a good thing I didn’t see that movie. It probably sucked and would have been a waste of time.”

I never told anyone about my new found dislike, and still bought a copy of the DVD for my brother for his birthday, fully expecting him to hate it, but kind of short on gift ideas (I’m such a great sister, right?).

When he called me to thank me for the gift, and I asked him how the movie was, I was completely surprised to hear how much he liked it. At that point, SJ had already raved about it, but I was so put off by the suckiness of Hairspray and afraid of what the movie might do to my beloved Beatles music.

My brother bought the movie with him last weekend during his visit.

Of course - I loved it.

I loved the talented singing. I loved the new take on the songs.

I loved the acting.

I loved the costumes.

I loved the stories.

I loved that it was a very artistic movie but still had a plot you could follow.

So… I guess I was wrong about musical films. They are just give-or-take.

Have you seen the Onion’s Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth?

It is a politically incorrect, spoof atlas of the world. I read a review of it in the beginning of December, and just from the book excerpts in the article, I immediately knew I had to buy it.

In the book, nearly every country is featured on its own page (the US section spans several pages, with a description for each state), with full color maps, made-up statistics based on stereotypes, and humorous photos. You’ll get a small glimpse of what the book is like by visiting the interactive atlas on their website.

What makes the book so funny is that it is full of exaggerated stereotypes of what Americans think of other nations. The description of Italy really made me laugh:

Italy is known as one of the most racially intolerant nations in the world, where citizens base their opinions of other ethnicities on appearance and stereotypes alone. But then, what more do you expect from a bunch of greasy, filthy womanizers?

And so did that of India (but like I said, it is NOT politically correct):

Mired by rising poverty levels, polluted groundwater that threatens the lives of millions, and a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, the nation of India has every intention of addressing these problems just as soon as it finishes telling Midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer.

I know you have to have a certain sense of humor to enjoy the book, but I really did. I actually bought a copy of it for my brother-in-law for Christmas, but when I couldn’t put it down even before I gave it to him, I knew I would have to buy my own copy as well.

For being a joke book, there is a ton of content. I cannot imagine how long it took the authors to make it all up, or at least discover of all those stereotypes. I am looking forward to buying my own copy soon, and tainting my mind just a little bit more.

I recommend it to anyone with a good sense of humor, especially if you love maps like I do!

I am a very dedicated Natalie Portman fan. I will see any film she is in, no matter how awful (or wonderful) it might look, and poor Steven gets drug along to the theater with me. Sometimes he lucks out and ends up loving the movie - as was the case with V for Vendetta - and sometimes we leave the theater with him asking, “why did you want to see that?” (as was the case with Closer). I always tell him the same thing - that I will see anything she is in… and he always says that doesn’t make any sense. But I bet some of you are the same way, right? RIGHT?

Anyway, the newest film of hers that caught my interest is The Other Boleyn Girl, which comes to theaters in February. I knew the film was based on a book by Philippa Gregory, but I wasn’t planning on reading it. That is, until I saw this preview, and was so intrigued by the preview that I went and bought the book that day because I knew I couldn’t wait until February to know what the story is about.

Surprisingly, I ended up really liking the book. I usually don’t read novels so I was worried that I would struggle through it. But it has quite a bit of history in it, and a lot of scandal. Even though it was well over 600 pages, I finished it in a week and never grew tired of it.

And since I am clueless about world history, and had no idea who Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn were, I was actually surprised by a lot of the twists and turns in the plot.

The amazon site for the book has a pretty good review from Publishers Weekly if you are interested. I definitely recommend the book! I hope the movie doesn’t disappoint!