Random Thursday: Fame, Farcicalities, and Caffeinated Owls

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

This week has been surreal and I like to share.

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How to Handle Being Freshly Pressed

1. Giggle wildly and dance around showing everyone the huge stat spikes in your bar graph and the hourly jumps in your comments and followers.  Ignore all those who blink and say, “Oh.  You have a blog?”

2. Clear the notifications out of your inbox on an hourly basis and hope you haven’t deleted anything that needs an immediate response, or indeed, any response.*

3. Hope that a few of the new people will stick around once they discover what really goes on around here.**

4. Repeat the following as needed:

Goes without saying, really . . .

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The Perfect Mother’s Day Gift

A retractable leash + a binder clip + a suction cup hook =

No more drowned books!

Watson (my SIL) said she saw this and thought immediately of me.  Can’t imagine why.

I showed my husband and he said, “That’s silly . . . You don’t take baths any more.”

Well, no.  But make me one of these, throw in a working lock on the door and help me corral all the toys and find bubble bath that doesn’t smell like Dora the Explorer*** and I might consider it . . .

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Smooth like Iron

This one goes out to all the other Marvel nerds and, I guess, Justin Timberlake fans.

I promise there aren’t any spoilers . . . or not any more than the trailers.

But you’ve already seen the movie anyway, right?

Right?

The brilliant wekejay has other mash-ups, if you’re interested—Batman Maybe  had me rolling.

(what do you think, Jalisa?  Better than the original?)

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 Because I Like Owls and I Live Caffeine

Though I’m thinking that first one looks far too cheerful and, you know, alive.

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Another Mother’s Day Idea

Or at least the best car commercial I’ve ever seen.

And I once viewed over twenty collective minutes of Benedict Cumberbatch shilling^ for Jaguar.

Yeah, okay . . . Twice.

But this one still wins, for obvious reasons:

Sheer. Trekkie. Awesome.

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*If I haven’t responded to something you sent to me between Tuesday and today, please forgive me and send it again—if you sent it before that, I’ll find another excuse and get back to you . . . probably.

** Though if Poetry Wednesday didn’t send the numbers plummeting, you’re probably as close to bulletproof as you can be.

***Coconut, apparently.  Yeah, I don’t know, either.

^Although, since it’s Mr. Cumberbatch, one should really use a lower-pitched verb. To properly shill, you really need to be a tenor . . .

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Playing Iron Man Hooky

I had the day off today and while I did spent the morning on my WIP, thank you, I completely blew off writing a blog post this morning to go see Iron Man 3 at the $5.00 early matinee with Watson.

I’d apologize for being so late, but honestly?  I regret nothing.

For once, the trailers and posters actually didn’t spoil the best parts of this movie and I’m not about to start here—if you want a discussion of plot, find a real review or e-mail me.

But I will say that one of the reasons Tony Stark is among my favorite superheroes is that while he surrounds himself with self-built Deus ex Machinas—which is an important point in the movie—he himself is as flawed as a genius billionaire, former-playboy, philanthropist with the requisite crappy childhood—resulting in the usual high ego/low self-esteem— can be.

For every moment that his technology saves the day in a brilliant display, there are two that send him flying backwards into the wall, propelled by premature calculation syndrome and a highly amused law of physics.

And then, he picks himself up and fixes the problem.  Even when the problem is himself.  Even when he doesn’t have the first clue how to start.

I like that in a hero, even if that hero isn’t channeled through the brilliant Robert Downey, Jr.

Watson says that I watch movies with my entire being, and I’ll admit that there were several points in this movie where I laughed out loud, gasped, and/or whispered things from Awwww! to Called it! to BOO-yah! to  Wait, What?!  No WAY!

And, in one shining moment that may be a tiny bit of a spoiler, Holy cow—forty-TWO!

I invite you, after you watch this movie, to guess when that was.*

I won’t say the movie is perfect, because it isn’t.  But it’s close, and it’s fun and it’s acted brilliantly by almost everyone.  It’s also a reminder that while the worst villains create the best heroes, it works the other way around, too, and Iron Man is still paying the price for being pre-revelation Tony Stark.

Plus, it has some of my favorite characters being themselves, or even better.  Any movie where Pepper is allowed to be more than a . . . well, spoilers, sweetie, so never mind, but JARVIS**  is as perfectly snarky as a literal Deus ex Machina is allowed to be.  Even Happy, who frankly deserves better from this franchise than to be the plucky, ineffective sidekick, has his moments.

It’s definitely worth seeing more than once, even if that means skipping a blog post or two.

So there.

Now go see it already so I can talk about it.  Okay?

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*There’s also a puppy-in-serious-danger moment, early on, that hurt my stomach, because I am that big a Marvel fangirl.   you are invited to e-mail me about that one, too.

**On whom I’m braincrushing like whoa, though that’s partially Paul Bellamy’s fault.