RANDOM THOUGHTS OF NOT-A-WHOLE-LOT: SPELLING BEES, GEEKS AND STAR WARS

Unemployment is fascinating. On the one hand, I feel like I need to be getting up and doing things: writing, contacting people about work, looking for freelance things, etc. It's hard for me to do that in my apartment because of that occasional lack of discipline. I mean, I'm as able to multi-task as much as the next person -- maybe even sometimes better -- and it's not so hard to email and search the web while watching TV. In fact, it's probably harder for me to NOT email and jump from site to site while sitting on the couch with the TV on. Take right now for a second. You think my full attention is on this post? Ha! Never. With the 2005 National Spelling Bee on ESPN? (Not ESPN2, mind you.) Are you kidding. Transfixed, I am, and right now feeling so bad for the poor girl who just missed "Sciosophy," yet still in awe of the boy who correctly spelled "gnotobiotic." (Those "gn" words are especially tough. This one didn't utilize the italian "nya" pronunciation for "gn.") If you've seen Spellbound, I'm sure you have no trouble understanding why I so easily got sucked into this coverage.

Nevertheless, I must get up and go do some "work" (whatever that means exactly) out somewhere ... I need a better office than Barnes & Noble, but I'm stuck on the Upper West Side, so it's really just that or Starbucks. Meanwhile, I promised myself I was going to return to daily updating, so here I am.

(Ah man ... this kid just missed "keratinophilic" -- he spelled it "coratinophilic," and really, who wouldn't? For you Spelling Bee freaks out there -- nice to meet you kettle -- keratinophilic is "showing strong affinity for hair, skin, feathers, horns, and other epidermal material. Well, DUH! God that BELL! The bell when they're wrong. It's just so painful.)

So, anyway ...

I'm in the middle of this Star Wars marathon, like I believe I mentioned yesterday, and last night I watched Episode I: The Phantom Menace again. You know, I hadn't seen it in a few years, and I really, REALLY, REALLY didn't remember it being as annoyingly bad and relatively boring as I found it last night. I think I kind of hated it. I remember seeing it at the Mann Village Westwood (possibly my all-time favorite place to see a movie) when it opened in 1999 and, like most people, being underwhelmed. But I tried to recognize it for what it was: a little over two hours of exposition -- set-up for what should be (or at least could be) two amazing movies to take us into what we all know as the "beginning" of the saga. But wow ... seeing it again now, I'm not sure how my eyes and ears didn't bleed from the Jar Jar Binks/Jake Lloyd combo the first time around. I remember being moderately annoyed by both of them, but not like this. I almost couldn't watch it. And what a shame -- you know there were actually talented 9 year olds alive who could maybe even convincingly say "Yippee!" on cue, but Lloyd wasn't one of them. And that movie, more than any other, just reinforces that as imaginative as Lucas is in creating his own cinematic world, he's a horrible director of actors. Still, watching all of these movies having already seen Revenge of the Sith has been very interesting. Tonight I'll retackle Attack of the Clones and maybe get to all the Clone Wars episodes before heading back to the Ziegfeld on Saturday.

When I've seen it again, I'll come back to provide my (very late) 45 cents on the movie and the saga and all that stuff. It's been interesting to hear everyone else's opinions, and to read the various reflections on not just the movies but what the movies mean to various individuals' lives. Kevin Smith wrote an interesting personal essay in Rolling Stone (here's page 1 and page 2), and while I may not be lamenting lost youth quite as much as Filmbrain (although I do, but for a slightly different reason I'll get to next week), his was an perspective I can (shockingly ... this is happening more often, dammit! Must be time for Gallo!) generally agree with. Anyway, more to come ... I'm sure you're all very anxious.

ONE OTHER NOTE TODAY: I did -- oh yes, yes I did -- watch Beauty and the Geek last night. See, what might have made this show really special was if the women had acted really attracted to these "geeks," even started lap dancing and grinding against them or something only to have Ashton run out at the end jumping around like a monkey on crack yelling, "Yo, youse all been punk'd!" Oh yeah ... that would have been some quality television.

Or not. Actually, the show wasn't that bad. Appointment TV? Maybe not. Do they spend way too much time trying to reinforce to the audience that this is a "social experiment" and not a reality show contest, only to have the end come down to a team-on-team elimination where one couple loses out on their chance for $250K? Yes, of course. One also must wonder how much "secret" prep any of these people really had, because for one thing, none of the "beauties" -- who are basically supposed to be hot women who know how to date and get what they want using their looks, and whose job it is to teach the guys social skills -- are really as one might otherwise expect them to be on a show like this. They all seem relatively open to the experience, and even more importantly, most of them seem to have little trouble admitting that they're not all that bright -- at least in a book smarts sense.

The guys meanwhile ... wow the guys. You know, there's really not much to say about them, except that one keeps getting nosebleeds (and his "beauty" was soooo nice that when it happened while they were dancing, she actually wiped it away with her hand! uhm ... gross?), another is beyond shy, and then there's Richard, who one of the girls described as "a white Urkel," and that description kind of nails him. He's less nasally than Urkel -- more like Woody Allen meets Richard Kind with some of Martin Short's Ed Grimley thrown in. Really, he's indescribable, and quite possibly enough of a reason to watch this show. I'd love to see him and William Hung go head-to-head in some sort of competition -- maybe MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno.

Then again, maybe not.

(Some 12 year old 7th grade boy just spelled "poliorcetics" which apparently means "the art of conducting and resisting sieges." And he didn't even ask to have it used in a sentence. Shockingly, the language of origin is Greek. I get the feeling people don't use "poliorcetics" in conversation so much anymore. You know the coolest thing about using spelling bee words in a post? When I spellcheck, they all come up as mistakes! Heh ... that gave me a chuckle.)

Comments

[cynthia]

ahem. i venture to say that most chicks would know how to spell keratinophilic if they had the definition, as we all know that keratin is hair protein and we look for shampoos with keratin amino acids in them. :)

[Aaron]

Cynthia: That makes perfect sense, and is yet just another reason why most chicks are probably smarter than I am.

OK, so the most heartbreaking Spelling Bee thing just happened. Some kid had the word "synechthran." When he heard it and heard it defined he got all excited and asked if it comes from this greek prefix and that greek prefix with these meanings. Then he started to spell and he stumbled. He started over, and spelled "synechthrOn." Oh my god! He's going to relive that moment FOREVER! Poor 13 year old Matthew Geise from Mason, Ohio.