Let me tell you a story. It is one of loss, betrayal, and first-world hardship. This is a story that proves it may, in fact, be better never to have loved than to have loved and lost. This is the chronicle of my pathetic history with the Blackberry.
I bought my first Blackberry in the summer of 2009 as a personal reward for completing college and obtaining a real-person job. It felt appropriate: I was an adult, and people would thus require constant access to me. In turn, I would need constant access to Google maps, Facebook, and the TFLN mobile website. I even bought a gel skin to protect my investment. Life was grand.
The following Thanksgiving, I was helping my grandfather haul a Christmas tree over a porch railing, forgetting about my prize Blackberry encased in its feeble gel skin in my front pocket. I leaned hard, resulting in a broken screen. Goodbye, Blackberry #1.
Blackberry #2 fell victim to a friend's birthday bar night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a few months later. It was left on a table, whereupon some douchebag picked it up, turned it off, and probably sold it on eBay, instead of replying to my frantic texts and phone calls. People are a-holes.
Blackberry #3 also fell victim to a broken screen, but I was particularly irked because I hadn't done anything to deserve it this time. It was just sitting in my bag, minding its own business, when it got the living shit kicked out of it by another member of my purse community. No one has stepped forward to claim responsibility. It was probably domestic terrorism.
Blackberry #4 was lost in epic fashion while vacationing in Las Vegas this past February. To protect the integrity of those involved, I'll just say that the last time I saw it, my fourth Blackberry was somewhere in Treasure Island. (Trust me, it's not the weirdest thing found there.) Needless to say, Vegas marketers don't fuck around.
At this point, my cell phone insurance provider dropped my coverage. I was officially on my own. But that didn't slow my irreverent momentum, as Blackberries were dropping like acid at a Flaming Lips concert. Blackberry #5 was in my hand during a softball team bar outing this spring. Fifteen minutes later, it was nowhere to be seen. Again, I suspect some douchebag picked it up and made an eBay profit. Seriously, people suck.
Blackberry #6 was obtained from the T-Mobile store in June, but within a couple days it was clear there was a defect that prevented certain necessary actions. I could not, for instance, upload photos to Facebook from my mobile device. Finding this injustice unacceptable, I took it back to the store and traded it for one that worked. This, I submit, was the most innocent and painless of the Blackberry deaths. At the very least, it was definitely not my fault.
But Blackberry #7 only lasted two weeks. It was lost this past Thursday, somewhere between a River North club and the cab ride home. I honest to God have no idea what happened.
The cosmic message is clear: I was not meant to be a smartphone owner. In an act of contrition, I've downgraded to the "Samsung :)" -- a slide phone designed for a 13-year-old girl with an emoticon fetish. If I can keep this flimsy not-smartphone alive for a year, I'm allowed to get another Blackberry. We'll see how it goes.
In the meantime, I urge you, dear Reader, to observe a moment of silence for the seven Blackberries that had to die to teach me this unpleasant lesson. What was meant to be a symbol of my triumphant entry into adulthood has turned into the insolent shitshow of my early twenties. Let their demise not be in vain. Learn from my tale. And don't bother with the gel skin.
Alas, if only I'd gone for real protection. At the very least, thieves would have been deterred out of pure disgust.
I spent a lot of time last Friday finishing up a blog post about memoir and narcissism, and then Blogger spazzed over the weekend and lost it and still hasn't restored it. Anyone else have this problem? Did it get fixed?
I suppose common sense would be to back up all these posts on Word docs...still, I feel wronged.
Nonsequitur: I started Bossypants by Tina Fey this morning on train. My. God. I was worried it'd been overhyped and wouldn't live up to my grandiose expectations for basically the funniest woman on the scene right now. I needn't have fretted. It's awesome: I'm 10 pages in but it's already jam-packed with humor and good writing and good humor writing. Pick it up immediately.
I'd never really thought much about the movie ratings system until a couple of months ago when I watched the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated. (Netflix instant streaming: Helping me rediscover my love of progressive documentaries since 2008-ish.)
Overall, it was a well-made film about how a biased, independent, secretive board gets to rate movies and therefore control and sometimes censor pop culture. I watched the film with a critical eye: It made some really good points, but at times it felt blown out of proportion. I was in a documentary frenzy and had just finished watching Food Inc., a must-see about how the American food industry and our developing societal norms are totally screwing over the citizenry's health. So in comparison to that weighty subject matter, movie ratings felt like not as big a deal.
But if we're talking about the larger picture of societal norms, and the question is about who's making those decisions, then the egregiously under-reported actions of the MPAA become incredibly relevant in understanding American culture and the direction we're headed. I came away agreeing with Kirby Dick, the film's creator and director, and feeling indignant about how exceedingly graphic violence (hello, Quentin Tarantino) can make it through with an R rating while a hint of sexual intimacy can merit an NC-17 rating, which basically spells death at the box office.
An NC-17 rating means that no one under 17 can see it, so it's generally understood to mean that it's halfway to porn -- even if it's really not that bad. (The documentary lists a number of great examples, including the Oscar-winning Boys Don't Cry.) That's all fine and good -- whatever, children come first and we should protect them and blah blah blah -- except that theater chains like Landmark and Century don't show NC-17 movies. Period. And if you choose not to accept the rating, your marketing options are severely limited. So basically no one ever gets to see them, and NC-17 movies die a sad, silent, poor death.
And normally, the rating cannot be appealed and reversed without taking out pieces of the movie, which oftentimes amounts to sanitizing not only the scenes, but the plot itself. And the MPAA hides behind the stipulation that they don't give specific notes on what to cut -- because that would make them a "censorship organization." Except, you know, they do, and they are.
Don't cry, masculine Hilary Swank!
Anyway, I sort of forgot about the whole thing until last month, when the MPAA made headlines by giving two movies with similarly sexual moments two different ratings: Black Swan, featuring a lesbian oral sex scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, received an R rating, while a similar scene in Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams got the dreaded NC-17 sticker. Both movies are considered Oscar contenders, so studio head Harvey Weinstein went to bat and appealed to the MPAA. In a rare move, today the MPAA actuallyreversed the decision, and Blue Valentine opened in theaters across the country to huge buzz and critical acclaim.
I'm not sure what sort of victory this is, but I do know that the press around the issue is the most I've seen, especially since I apparently missed the original release of the documentary back in 2006. So while an unjust movie ratings system may not be something to march or hunger strike about, it's something to be aware of and healthfully question. The role the MPAA plays in the movie industry is, in a word, unholy.
In case you're unfamiliar with the two movies -- not sure how you could be, unless you live under a rock and ignore ballerina horror flicks and the inimitable Ryan Gosling (and this from a girl that's never seen The Notebook) -- check out the trailers below.
Black Swan (succinct review by friend and movie buff Joe here):
I lose things. Often. It's not that I don't value my possessions, it's that I just can't seem to keep track of anything, which is surprising because I'm an incredibly organized person. One look at my planner will scare any errant agenda into submission.
So I wasn't that surprised when I lost my license last weekend in Nashville. I've come to expect such things. We drove down for a football game, and I took my ID into the stadium with me but left my purse in the car. Somewhere between the stadium and my car, I dropped the ID, meaning I couldn't go out in Nashville to celebrate the win with my friends. Worse, I was the driver, so I trampled all over my friends' fun for an hour while they tried to figure out how they'd get home without me. I felt bad, but again, it felt typical. On Tuesday morning I got a new license ($5 for a duplicate, a small price to pay for negligent stupidity) and went along my merry way. No use getting upset.
This morning I received an email from someone who had found my license. They had apparently Googled my name along with the word "Vanderbilt," come across Lake the Posts and therefore my email address, and figured it was the same person.
Moral of the story: If you do something stupid, make sure your web presence is up to date. From now on I'll be sure to blog incessantly about whatever city I lose my stuff in. Maybe lightening will strike twice.
Or maybe it's time for the government to start putting email addresses on IDs.* Just a thought.
* I checked, and "mclovin (at) gmail (dot) com" is taken. Damn.
Twenty to twenty-five percent of this country is composed of complete and utter imbeciles. (If you don't feel like following the link, I'm talking about the poll that came out this week indicating that approximately a quarter of American citizens believe Obama is Muslim. I know, right?)
Special shout-out to Newsweek for clarifying the wrongness in their headline. If you can't educate the people, dumb down the material, I always say.
P.S. A Google image search of "Muslim Obama" brings up some really disturbing stuff. Apparently the entire stupid 20-25% of the country is on the 'Net and writing blogs. Here's to hoping this blog is at least in the 74th percentile.
I'm sure this will come as a shock, considering that I'm young, liberal and enjoy my news with a dash of sarcasm, but I'm a big fan of the Daily Show, and I was excited to see a new face about a month back when Olivia Munn made her debut as a correspondent. She's apparently got quite the frat-fan-boy following already, having co-hosted a show on G4 since 2006 and not shying away from some pretty base humor. Her mother may cringe, but Munn seems to be willing to do whatever for a laugh, and I can appreciate that.
But the shit hit the fan a couple weeks later when Jezebel -- a women's blog owned by the Gawker network -- published a piece accusing the Daily Show of having a "woman problem." Specifically, that the show doesn't employ enough ladies and fosters a hostile environment for the few that do work there. The Jezebel editors were apparently irked by the addition of Munn to the news show, as her aforementioned antics and natural assets (see below) landed her on the cover of magazines like Maxim and even Playboy (as opposed to, you know, respectable journalism outlets like Cosmo). Jezebel just doesn't see the humor in a popular segment on the G4 show that consists of Munn putting various objects in her mouth. (Which, you know, may be a fair point.)
A thorough read reveals that the Jezebel piece is a joke, and trades on knee-jerk feminism that is dutifully documented by Slate's Emily Gould, a former Gawker editor. (The gist: Splashy, angry-sounding, fist-waving feminist pieces fuel page views...even if the point they're making is stupid or overblown.) What's awesome is how the Daily Show and Olivia Munn have been handling it. The women of the Daily Showpublished a letter (written to "People Who Don't Work Here") addressing the allegations directly. True to the spirit of the show, the letter is sincere, factual and funny. Munn has a book hitting shelves today, so I'm sure she's not too upset about the media blitz around this story, but she remains cool and hilarious in the interviews she's given. Her second Daily Show segment aired last Thursday, and the Daily Show continues to do what SNL hasn't achieved in years -- be consistently funny. Welcome to the family, Olivia.
Munn's Leia costume caused something of a stir at last year's Comic-Con. I wonder why.
Alas, if only I'd gone for real protection. At the very least,
