Friday, August 10, 2007

 Stardust

I actually have other items to post about here but haven't managed to get to it today. But I'm going to use this moment before dinner to tell you that I went to Stardust today and it was awesome. The review in the paper said that the movie started out slow but won you over as it went along. The first hour in I was thinking, "Yeah, solid B+." But then the second half is totally off the hook and fabulous. I've seen it compared to The Princess Bride and I'll go with that.

The trailers were nerdgirl porn heaven. The Golden Compass, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, something I've never heard of called The Spiderwick Chronicles which stars Freddie Highmore who broke my heart in Finding Neverland and the Mom from Weeds. Also a trailer for Beowulf.

If I was a person who hated fantasy movies I'd note some major similarities and images that all these movies have in common. But I don't hate them. So I'll just say they looked "omigod, if I get a terminal illness in the next few weeks I'll kill myself" great, except maybe the need for more dragons.

If there had been a trailer for Prince Caspian they would have had to wipe me off the floor. (Teaser for Caspian here.)

Completely unrelated but for the third Friday at dinnertime in a row, some young person has stopped by our door for some stupid reason. Person #1 wanted to give us a "free" security system in exchange for putting a sign in our yard. Since my colleague has such a "free" system installed for $275 and I am old enough to know that "free" is a big fat lie, I declined.

Last week was some kid who is very concerned about global warming. It's not a joke and we need to do something about it. And something seemed to involve me writing a check. Besides that, I didn't hear anything about what they were actually going to do about global warming. I sent him on his way as well.

Spoiler alert but I almost never give money to people who come to my door. My only exception is for really cute kids selling candy that I would actually eat for ballet or something like that.

Today a young gal came over and wanted to know if she could put a small sign for her company, which she pointed their logo on her shirt to emphasise, in our front yard, because they wanted our neighbors to get familiar with the name.

"I'm not interested," I said.

"It's really important that we get our name out there," she said.

"It's not important to me. But thanks for stopping by." Begin closing door.

"It's just a small sign. We'd pay you for it."

My head spinning around and the dragon breath shooting out, "I don't want your sign in my yard. I was polite I said no thank you, good bye."

I HATE marketing. I hate that every inch of clear space in the universe has to be plastered with an ad. I hate branding. I hate loyalty programs (mostly). Now I'm supposed to do some sketchy company a favor and let them put an ad in my yard? Now I can drive through my neighborhood and be assaulted by marketing in people's private yards?

And she didn't even tell me what the company does.