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In case you didn’t notice, my blogging drought ended. And though I still haven’t been to the gym, my life force energy seems to be on an upswing. Today I successfully managed to finish my Burn Baby Burn Mix CD! I’m worried that I put way too much effort into it though. I always do that. It’s like when we’d have gift exchanges in elementary school, and I’d always pick out something over the price limit yet really cool that I’d like to get myself, and in exchange I’d get a piece of wood with that “Footprints” poem glued to it. Not that I think your CDs will in any way equate to “Footprints”! I just mean that I never know what’s required in such situations and I tend to overcompensate. In other words: I spent five hours laying out the booklet insert to make sure that the pages were double-sided and lined up correctly and organized so that they’d be in order when you turn the pages. When in reality, nobody would have thought the less of me for printing it out on a sheet of paper, folding it up, and wedging it inside. See, when you don’t have a job, you find lots of other little tasks for your brain to obsess over. *sigh* Anyway, they’re going out in the mail tomorrow, so you all feel free to bitch about my issues when you get it. I’ll understand.

I finally picked up a copy of the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – 30th Anniversary DVD the other day. You know, I have really mixed feelings about this film. On one hand I have the same cheesy feelings of nostalgia and love for it that all Generation Xers have. On the other hand, as a Roald Dahl expert I find it to be a cheap, shoddy, craptacular adaptation of the book. So I had a lot of conflicting emotions while watching the “cast commentary” version today. My thoughts:

• While it was great to have all five of the kids there, I wish they had actually shown them grown-up at the start (a la the terrific Goonies DVD commentary). Instead you just get voice introductions, and it’s a little hard at first to remember who’s who.
• Just as in the film, Charlie and Augustus don’t say a lot. Mike, Veruca, and Violet dominate the discussion. I guess that’s not surprising, considering those three stayed in the acting profession while the other two quit and faded from public view.
• Veruca and Violet were both hot for Charlie in a big way. Apparently Veruca won and Violet ended up with some random other blond extra kid. Violet is still bitter about this, and the two of them spent most of the commentary laughing about it. They kept trying to get Charlie to comment, but he seemed embarrassed and wouldn’t say anything.
• You could totally hear them trying to pull Augustus into the conversation and failing. He’s only in the movie for about fifteen minutes anyway, so once he’d gone up the pipe he was pretty much silent. They finally just resorted to asking him for German pronunciations and landmark identification every so often.
• Damn. I’ve corresponded with both Mike and Violet (via my Dahl site), so I was totally hoping for a shout-out. Denied.
• The only mention of Dahl’s name occurred when Mike referred to one of the schoolteacher’s speeches as “So Roald Dahl.” Which was utter crap, since that bit didn’t come from the original book and didn’t sound anything like typical Dahl.
• Dahl only makes a few appearances in the extra documentary and featurette, as well. The director never explains why he decided to throw out all of the Oompa-Loompas original songs in favor of the dreadful Bricusse/Newley ones. He also mentions but never fully explains why Dahl’s original script was torn to shit and rewritten by someone else. He does, however, tell the thrilling tale of how the entire film was conceived and produced merely to sell a new Quaker Oats candy bar (that ended up flopping completely). Well, at least no one will be in any danger of presuming the producers’ intentions to be artistic.

See what I mean? I start out with nice feelings towards the film, but that quickly fades when I realize how great it could have been and how crappy and commercial it turned out. I feel sad that my generation venerates such a shallow marketing ploy as a cinematic classic. Mostly I feel for Roald Dahl, who hated the end result and resented having his name put to it. Sure, he wasn’t the greatest writer in the world, but at least he wasn’t responsible for “Oompa loompa doompety doo.”

Holy crap. Am I insane, or did I just realize that Billy from Six Feet Under is Elton from Clueless, but with, like, a lot more hair? My mind is blown.

“Web Designer Builds Home Out of Flash”. My friend Ferret sent me that link, and if anybody could do it, he could. 🙂

I’m all blogged out. In fact, I’m “everythinged” out. I’ve got lots of projects waiting to be finished and I just can’t muster the energy. I haven’t been to the gym in a week. My Burn Baby Burn CDs are still missing their cover art. I blame it all on seasonal affective disorder, really. Does anybody have any ideas to get me motivated?

Shhh! My brain is still dealing with the after-effects of last night’s drinking session, so I’m going to put it to bed. Don’t wake the baby.

Ahh, baseball. It looks like my Mets could have a good year! They certainly got off to a great start against their hated rivals. (And no, I’m not playing Fantasy Baseball this season. I learned my lesson when I got spanked in my league last year.)

Hey, click on this link and add your location to the map! It correctly guessed that I was in Sydney, yet for some reason the dot it added for me was in California. Go figure.

Update: Don’t bother. It got linked everywhere today and the resulting traffic killed it.

Friday Five:
Huh. These are all about daily routines. You guys (that is, the gainfully employed ones) are gonna hate my answers. 🙂

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day?
Well, the Snook and I generally wake up about 9:30 or so. Most days he gets up before me and I snooze for another hour. I go to the bathroom and then plop down on the couch with my laptop. He’ll be at the desk, already signed on. Then we do our little morning computer rituals. He reads his Slashdot; I catch up on Metafilter. After an hour or so we munch some breakfast. That’s about it. Neither of us are morning people. We function much better in the evenings. Even in London we’d never make it into work before 10 a.m.

2. What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed?
Wee, take out my contacts, brush my teeth, drink of water, and then into bed. I used to read a lot before going to sleep, but since the Snook dozes off as soon as his head hits the pillow, I’ve been cutting it back.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day?
Searching through the want ads. Oh, and Days of Our Lives on Channel 9 from 12:00 – 1:00.

4. What routine do you wish you get rid of?
Probably putting in/taking out my contacts. It’s always been a bit of a hassle, and right now it’s allergy season so my eyes are really red and sensitive. One of these days I’m just gonna get Lasix surgery, I swear.

5. What’s the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don’t do it some point within your day?
This is gonna be totally cheesy, but if I don’t get enough smoochies from my boy during the morning, I feel “off” the rest of the day.

The Snook and I finally saw The Royal Tenenbaums tonight. I didn’t like it as much as Ebert did. I seriously think I might have liked it more if every single actor in it hadn’t been so recognizable. Instead it was a steady stream of “Look at Gwyneth Paltrow being so un-Gwyneth Paltrow-like!” and “Gee, isn’t if funny how Ben Stiller keeps wearing the same tracksuit?” Their characters were based on costumes and gimmicks, and I couldn’t find a single person to like or identify with. I also have a history of not liking movies without plots (and this one didn’t have much of one). If any of you really liked it, can you explain why?

(Clarification: I’m not saying I didn’t like it. It was entertaining. It wasn’t my favorite movie of the year, though, and I think I only laughed out loud maybe once, as opposed to the guy behind me who guffawed all the way through it. What did he get that I didn’t get??)