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October 9, 2005:

150,000 POSTS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am happy to inform you that yesterday afternoon we achieved our amazingly amazing incredibly incredible stupendously stupendous new plateau – 150,000 postings. I feel that is quite a feat or, at the very least, quite a feet. I feel confident in predicting that soon we will be the most popular site on all the Internet. So, today we shall be having a celebratory celebration all the livelong day and night. If there is a quorum on the forum in the late afternoon, I may even open our Unseemly Live Chat room so that we may have an Unseemly Live Chat. Yesterday was just the sort of day I enjoy. First of all, I was able to find the things I needed to find in the storage facility, and I found them with ease. I did a few other things, and then came back to the home environment and just sat on my couch like so much fish, relaxing and reading, before settling down and relaxing and not reading. I then had a sparklingly sparkling dinner with our very own Mr. Nick Redman and his pal Julie. We went to the Daily Grill and it was quite fun. Afterward, we stopped in at my local DVD shop and Nick and Julie both bought DVDs, whilst I bought nothing whatsoever (although I was given a gift by the owner – an advance copy of Howard Shore’s score to The History of Violence). They did have a couple of upcoming DVDs, The Flesh Eaters and some Japanese 60s horror thing starring Sonna Chiba, but I wasn’t sure I needed them, and then someone else snapped them up. I, however, have plenty to watch and catch up on so it didn’t bother me one way or the other. Can you believe we have had over 150,000 postings on this here discussion board? I think that calls for some dancing, don’t you? Let’s all do the Lambada (The Forbidden Dance), and then we can do the Limbo, accompanied by Dino at the piano. I feel we must all celebrate by eating something faboo for dessert. We must all eat a faboo sweet treat and then we must post about what our sweet treat was, so that all our collective mouths can collectively water. 150,000 postings. That calls for a song, doesn’t it? Let’s all sing Tom Dooley or Michael, Row the Boat Ashore, shall we? Let’s have an old-fashioned hootenanny or a new-fashioned hootenanny, but let’s have some sort of fershluganah hootenanny, damn it all.

Yesterday, I watched two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Lifeboat, starring Miss Tallulah Bankhead, directed by Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. It’s quite an impressive film, given that everything takes place in the lifeboat. It’s amazing how Mr. Hitchcock, through the sheer cleverness of his filmmaking, can keep everything moving along, keep tensions high, and keep the audience interested from beginning to end. It’s not my favorite Hitch movie – I find it too talky and a bit contrived, but it does have its pleasures. The cast is really fine, and Mr. Hitchcock’s technique is really fascinating to watch. Miss Bankhead is a load of fun, and Mr. Walter Slezak gives a memorable performance. The transfer is really excellent, although I’m sure the less knowledgeable folks on the DVD sites will probably complain about the first ten minutes, which is very grainy. It should be very grainy, since every shot in that opening ten minutes is an optical of overlaid fog. After the ten minutes, the contrast is rich, the image is sharp, and the sound is robust. I started to watch the little making of documentary, but it’s another one of those “Professor” Drew Casper yawners – this guy could put anyone to sleep with his endless banal pronouncements – so I gave up after ten minutes. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD – one of the classic ABC Movie of the Weeks from the early 70s, 1973 to be exact. This is the second ABC Movie of the Week to be released on DVD – the first was Michael Crichton’s excellent Pursuit. One can only hope that there will be more coming. This ABC Movie of the Week is one of the most fondly remembered – The Girl Most Likely To, starring Stockard Channing, written by Joan Rivers. It’s got a great cast, it’s competently directed, and the idea and the script are really good. Miss Channing gives a tour de force performance, deserving of an Emmy. Along for the ride are Ed Asner, Chuck McCann, Ruth McDevitt, Jim Backus, Warren Berlinger and many others. I hadn’t seen this since it was aired, and it holds up really well. There are also several interesting ties to me. The easy two are that there are two Partridge Family ties. The slightly more difficult are the three count them three First Nudie Musical ties. While it’s conceivable you might guess two of those ties, the third is pretty outrĂ© and requires that you pay very close attention to one scene set in a theater. The first person to guess all five ties (the two Partridge Family ties and the three Nudie ties) will win a sparkling prize – that in lieu of our Unseemly Trivia Contest question. Send your guesses to me at the usual address. The transfer of The Girl Most Likely To is the usual MGM/UA botch – I understand these films were low-budget, and that surviving elements might not be the greatest, but there is no excuse for the dark, ugly transfer that’s on view here. Even a little brightening in the telecine room would have helped, but no, they just slap it on the DVD the way it is. However, don’t let that stop you from getting the DVD, because it’s the movie that counts, and it’s a lot of fun.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we all pat ourselves on our collective backs for our new splendiferous achievement of 150,000 posts.

I have two screenings at the DGA today – not sure if I’ll attend either, but I’m thinking about it. The first is Cronenberg’s The History of Violence, and the second is Flightplan. We’ll see how I’m feeling. I may forego Violence and just see Flightplan, that way I’ll be here to open the chat room in case we have a quorum on the forum.

I am going to attempt to write a few pages today, to make up for lost days. I’m also going to prep all the envelopes for shipping – that way, all I have to do is put the books into the envelopes and ship them off. We’re still hopeful that the books will be here tomorrow, as promised (after Friday’s debacle).

I do hope you are all feeling festively festive over our miraculously miraculous new plateau of 150,000 posts. I think this calls for a Diet Coke and a chorus of Yes, We Have No Bananas.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write, I must relax, I must have a sweet treat (as must you), I must partay and dance and sing, and I must do a few other things worth doing. Today’s topic of discussion: What was your most successful class in school – the one that interested you most that you did the best in – elementary school, junior high school, high school, and college. And what was your least successful class – you know, the one you just couldn’t or didn’t do well in. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, as we now climb ev’ry mountain and ford ev’ry stream or, at the very least, chevrolet ev’ry stream towards our new plateau of 200,000 postings.

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