That wasn’t working out so much. It became too unwieldy. So I figured the readership of my other blog can just deal with my nerdiness. So if you want to see posts like these (WoW PVP gear) head on over to Skeptigirl instead of here. This may change again in the future, so I’m keeping this blog around, but for now head there for all your nerdy needs.

Thanks.

Well…shit.

UPDATE: Suicide?

UPDATE: Or not? Ok internet speculation overload. I’m done.

See that really faded crater on the far right in the bottom corner? That is a crater in the moon’s shadow. Pretty cool.

And here’s a nifty crater.

And here it is again.

This is all I managed to get before the clouds rolled in. My lunar map’s amazing suckitude had prevented me from identifying the crater. The map making people thought it would be a fantastic idea to develop a moon map that was impossible to read. Thanks, Peterson Field Guides! They provide a map orientation that is reversed L-R to what is seen by the naked eye which is annoying if your scope doesn’t do the same reversal. On this little map they separate the moon into 8 sections which they blow up and put on the following 8 pages. Funny story, they put them upside down for the close ups (relative to the small overall map). Wtf?

I’ve been looking at a few online maps to see if I can determine what crater this is, but my book has pissed me off enough to give up for the night. I will update when I find out what it is.

A) He picked the chick that’s porking Reggie over the innocent blond?

B) Betty is clearly devastated, so what was going on there that she didn’t see this coming?

C) When was the last time anyone read Archie?

So here’s my prediction: 1) Buffy, played by someone in her 30s with big boobs pretending to be a teenager, engages in some adventure with her “teenager” friends and cheap teenage angst (with monsters) ensues which worked as a show because it’s TV but will not make any goddamn sense to be worth 10$ in a theatre or 2) something non-canon will happen in the timeline after Season 7 with more adult versions of Buffy and her friends (whoever they may be) and cheap adult sex (wth monsters) ensues.

This comes on the heels of some other wtf news. A Twitter TV show? Srsly??!

UPDATE: The Buffy movie is a complete reimagining tangential to the previous Buffy universe. Read: Twilight 2.0 in theatres 2011. Bandwagon, ftw!

Camera: 8.1 Mpx Sony Cyber-shot (DSC-W90) with settings I’m not too sure of at 4:30 AM but they were probably wrong anyway. Here’s what I think they were — ISO 3200, +2.0 EV, exposure balanced throughout the frame, unlimited focus distance, regular white balance, and maybe some other stuff my camera was doing without me knowing.

Telescope: Celestron refractor telescope, 76mm aperture and 300mm focal length. Description here.

The unplannedness of these pictures plus my epic green with photography contributed in making these photos less than stellar (ha! not at all lame pun — and Jupiter isn’t a star…so not at all a pun…I’m tired), but they are my first so here they are.

This blurry Jupiter was captured at 4:30 AM Monday, 25 May 2009.

You can’t see any of the moons, but it’s a start. I think this was my 6 mm eye piece.

Jupiter. My second (publishable) picture. I took several — these were the least objectionable.

This was taken at 4:30-something AM Monday, 25 May 2009. I think this was my 20 mm eye piece.

Buffy Anne Summers and Buffybot
Strengths: Um…[bored recitative voice] In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.
Weaknesses: “I just want to be normal.” Buffy seems to think that being a “normal” girl who’s weak, insecure, has ordinary friends that don’t regularly put their lives in danger for her, and goes on the occasional date is much better than having almost every significant male cast-member fall in love with her at some point, SUPERPOWERS, two extraordinarily devoted friends, and Giles. Not to mention that 98% of the guys falling in love with her are so hot I’d like to melt my face on their bumcheeks. Also, she keeps fucking dying so has not technically been “THE” slayer since Season 1.
Significant others: Owen (for about 2 seconds), Angel, Parker (for one night), Riley, Spike, Principal Wood. (Read: “Every hot guy ever on the show”.)
Hotness: 3.5 being splashed with water on a wooden chair our of 5 (because in season 5ish she got freakishly skinny).

Alexander “Xander” Harris
Strengths: This is going to be a tough one since they constantly make it perfectly clear how useless he is (even making a point to have a whole episode dedicated to this). However, I don’t know any other guys that would jump to the defense of his two closest friends when the things he’s defending them against are 2 to 8 times his size, possess super-strength, and knock him unconscious almost every time. So he may be useless but at least he’s got a pair. Of balls.
Weaknesses: Women are this man’s Kryptonite. He is dating the hottest, most popular girl in school despite his being “socially challenged” and cheats on her with the geekiest, most ordinary girl in school at the time. What the flying fuck is that? I mean, sweet merciful crap. No high school kid in the world would jeopardize nailing Charisma fucking Carpenter to make out with Willow. Also, he’s occasionally a little too “Xandler Bing” for my liking – like when they don’t know what to do with him in a particular episode, he’ll just sit in the background occasionally attempting Chandler-esque witticisms that have nothing to do with anything and then everyone looks at him and he slinks away. Oh yeah, and he has a cat face.
Significant others: Bug-lady, Impada, Cordy, made out with Willow a bunch of times, Faith, Anya, some Evil chick played by hip R&B singer at the time (a.k.a. Ashanti), a girl whose puppy got eaten by a giant man-worm, and Anya again.
Hotness: 3 wacky sombreros out of 5

Willow Rosenberg
Strengths: Computer whiz, genius, peppy, cute, funny shirts, practically a god. In the first few seasons, always there to get into some perilous situation from which Xander can get knocked unconscious trying to help and Buffy can subsequently rescue them both. In the later seasons, is always there to act all cute and then turn on a dime to be extremely creepy.
Weaknesses: Well she does become addicted to magic and turns a tad, um, evil.
Significant others: Oz (when she was pre-gay), Xander during the making out phase, Oz again, Tara, Tara again, and Kennedy.
Hotness: I apparently “look like her” (read: have red hair) so I’m obligated to say she’s dead sexy.

Cordelia “Cordy” Chase
Strengths: Most popular girl in school, extremely smart (school-wise), also I’m straight as a laser beam and even I’d do her. Gold medalist in the combing of one’s hair and looking in a mirror competition from 1997 to 1999.
Weaknesses: If Eric Cartman were a real person, a girl, and hot, he’d be Cordelia Chase. She is a huge bitch but in a hilarious sort of way I guess. She even made a girl invisible once. She spends most of season 1 screaming in terror…and a lot of season 2 doing the same I guess. Oh, and she also has cat face.
Significant others: Eleventy billion popular guys before they died or exploded or turned into zombie-type things made from the body parts of the recently deceased, Xander (this list does not include the show Angel).
Hotness: 8 melted ice cubes out of 5 ample chests

Rupert Giles
Strengths: A superhero with glasses!! He is also the most patient man EVER. Also, “She’s not like us.” Chilling.
Weaknesses: Made Behind Blue Eyes a song I can never listen to again without getting icky Giles feelings.
Significant others: Ms. Jenny Calendar, banged Buffy’s mom on the hood of a police car…twice, some chick from England (Olivia) that “stops by” every now and then.
Hotness: 3.5 romance novels out of 5

Angel/Angelus
Strengths: Hair that cannot be destroyed by any Earthly means. It can withstand the most ferocious barrage of wind and damaging sun rays with it’s salon formula mousse shield. This shield is of course most effective if the hair is positioned straight up into the air.
Weaknesses: In the first season, he only appeared in order to mumble something vague about “danger coming” and whatnot and then disappeared into the shadows – a sentence containing just enough information to exist and yet not enough to actually make sense or help in any way whatsoever. He’s kind of a vampire that is good but will lose his soul if he has sex with hot young pieces of ass that he’s in love with…well, that’s gotta blow.
Significant others: Darla, Buffy, awfully “close” to Drusilla occasionally (again, his show not included).
Hotness: 4 bottles of hair gel out of 5

Daniel “Oz” Osbourne
Strengths: Stoicism. He’s a tad werewolf.
Weaknesses: He’s a tad werewolf. Pulled the “I have to disappear for a while for no good reason to find myself or whatever” stunt that seems so very popular with the male characters on the show only to show up again expecting whatever friends and significant others to just remain totally normal and then when they’re not, takes off again.
Significant others: Willow, banged another chick werewolf (Veruca) while in werewolf form.
Hotness: 4.5 leprechauns out of 5

Willam “Spike” Something-or-other
Strengths: He’s a BAD ASSSSSSS!!!!!11
Weaknesses: Spends most of his blood money on Platinum Diva #7 hair dye. Eventually got a chip in his head preventing him from doing anything cool – he was still witty, but he got neutered in the later seasons (see Season 5 where he gets flung aside like a rag-doll by some old man).
Significant others: Drusilla, Harmony, Buffybot, Buffy, the sketchy wedding date, and Anya (one night only).
Hotness: 4 needlessly open shirts out of 5

Riley “I’m a huge pussy” Finn
Strengths: The only ones Riley possesses were given to him artificially by Dr. Frankenbitch (physical strengths). Also, he left eventually.
Weaknesses: Where do I even begin? I’ll start with whiney bitch and move on to LET VAMPIRES FUCKING SUCK ON HIM AT NIGHT. So at first we think everything is great, Riley is this nice awesome guy that is human and normal and gets Buffy away from that ass Parker but he has a seeeeecret [creepy music]. Well, it’s not that bad a secret and actually kind of helps his case a little because he has more in common with Buffy than she thinks. Problem is, he’s a self-conscious, macho, whiney little bitch. You see, Buffy (being the fucking SLAYER and all) is stronger than him. Later, he becomes weaker and this difference is amplified. He also pulls the “she doesn’t love me card” out on several occasions. Rather than talk to his girlfriend about the issues he’s having or break up with her, he puts up with “not being loved” and spends the rest of the time feeling sorry for himself because he’s weak. How? BY LETTING VAMPIRES FUCKING SUCK ON HIM AT NIGHT. And then gives the ol’ “well I’m taking off I guess unless you want to put up with my bullshit…so….see ya.” The worst part about that whole thing is that Buffy, totally out of character, actually has this huge “epiphany” (i.e., Xander reminds her how much being alone sucks) and tries to catch him before he leaves in what has got to be the lamest scene in the whole series.
Significant others: Buffy, various heroin-chic vampire sluts, Wifey McArmypants.
Hotness: 2 vampire-sucked veins out of 5

Aud Anyanka Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins Harris
Strengths: Used to be a vengeance demon. Is “newly human and strangely literal” (and by that I mean hilarious).
Weaknesses: Bunnies and money. One is due to paralyzing fear and intense hatred and the other is due to a burning passion that is experienced but once in a lifetime. Try to guess which is which. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Significant others: Xander, Spike (one night only), Xander again.
Hotness: 3.5 cheeseburgers out of 5 (she also got freakishly skinny)

Tara Maclay
Strengths: Non-skinny, attractive cast member (see? it IS possible).
Weaknesses: “But Wiiiiil-LOW, you’re using too much maaaaa-GIC. It’s only for when WE want you to use it. You shouldn’t be doing that when you’re all better than me.”
Significant others: Willow.
Hotness: 4 quartz crystals out of 5

Dawn Summers
Strengths: Has pretty hair?
Weaknesses: GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!!! Please do me a favor and choke and die. How come all of Buffy’s family members have to be as annoying as possible? I mean, it’s not even really her sister and she still has to put up with this “somebody please pay attention to me!!!!” nonsense? Like she doesn’t have enough stuff to worry about. “I’m sorry I was too busy saving your worthless ass after you summoned some demon, snuck off, or did some otherwise idiotic thing to play Monopoly with you today.” And then they both hug and cry. Her character is pretty much analogous to Michelle Tanner on Full House. If any of you watched that show (it’s ok, we all did it in our younger “experimental” days) you know what I’m talking about. I want to punch her in the trachea.
Significant others: Made out with odd-looking vampire in a car once.
Hotness: ew, she was like 14

Joyce Summers
Strengths: Died.
Weaknesses: Utterly clueless for the first few seasons – I really wish the writers had given her character a little more credit or let her in on the slayer thing earlier. She got “fed up” with Buffy’s strange behavior and kicked Buffy out of the house and then blamed her for it, she tried to burn Willow and Amy at the stake, and for some reason she has to make Dawn tag along with Buffy and her pals. What the fuck, Joyce? She knows one of her daughters is a frickin’ VAMPIRE SLAYER and gets the younger one to hang out with her CONSTANTLY because she’s too busy at the museum and then gets pissed when Dawn is exposed to “adult themes” and “violent content”. Surprise Joyce, vampires and demons don’t have V-chips.
Significant others: Buffy’s dad, Ted, banged Giles, and Brian (he sends nice flowers that apparently cause aneurisms to burst).
Hotness: 3.5 Xander’s wet dreams out of 5

Worthy of mention:

Darla
Didn’t know who the slayer was. Sired Angel. Had the one of the coolest fight scenes in the series (Season 1: “Angel”).

Amy Madison
Was a bad-ass witch, turned into a rat for about 4 years, was a bad-ass witch again.

Jenny Calendar
Well she’s pretty hot for a high school Computer Ed. teacher and was Gile’s main mojo for a bit.
Significant others: Giles. But she’s so goddamn horny that’d I’d bet there’s another few dozen names on the list.

Faith Lehane
Found the only leather store in the world that sells clothes sans fart-noise and can kick ass pretty good in these fart-noiseless clothes suggesting that they may also be sweatless. I want these clothes. But she got a little taste for, um, killing people and became a tad, um, psycho.
Significant others: Fucked Xander, etc. Let’s just say she got around.

Mayor Wilkins
One of the most original characters ever. Belligerence with a touch of OCD, polite yet ruthless. Very nice.

Principal Snyder
He’s Armin frikin’ Shimmerman! WE HAVE TO WIN THE STATE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!!11

Harmony
Just plain hilarious (well more how Spike treated her than her herself…that was a lot of ‘her’s). Always has the perfect outfit to attempt evil deeds in, but never actually has successfully completed an evil deed.
Significant others: Got around in high school, Spike.

Glory
Big bad of Season 5.

Jonathan Levinston
Ah Jonathan. Whenever a story needed a memorable tertiary character to be a hostage, screw something up, be made fun of, or sit in the background, Jonathan was there.

Andrew Wells
“I’m bored. Episode One bored.” Excellent.

Warren Meers
Being the cause of Willow almost destroying the all of everything makes one a tad important.

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), ZERO STARS (out of an arbitrary 4)

Steve Martin – the Dad who busts his ass for nothing
Bonnie Hunt – “the Mom”
Various – the bratty little kids who I wanted to get hit by a bus

Ok so the story is there’s this huge family and it’s hard to make ends meet. No big surprises there. After this typical set-up which I was willing to ignore for comedic purposes, I expected the hilarity to ensue due to the presence of the hilarious SNL veteran Steve Martin and the often hilarious (and under-appreciated) Bonnie Hunt who plays his wife. Instead I wanted to shoot myself in the face. Now, I read Roger Ebert’s review and I think he’s losing it in his old age. He loved this movie and the only reason I can think of is that maybe he watched an entirely different movie than any of the other critics and myself. Here’s why:

At the beginning of the movie the family is functioning as a team, doing things like making breakfast together and getting each other ready for school. Then when the father (Martin) gets a job in the city, they have to move. His job is to be the coach of a University football team and with this job comes several perks such as FREE UNIVERSITY FOR HIS KIDS!!! There’s 12 of them!!! BUT before the move, during the move, AND after the move all Dad can do is explain to his kids that this is HIS dream job and it makes HIM happy so suck it up when what he should be saying is “HEL-LO KIDS, FREE UNIVERSITY!!!” so of course all the kids do is whine because they think he’s being a selfish bastard.

Then they get there. It’s this massive mansion where every kid gets their own room, they have a huge yard to play in, they can afford new clothes instead of hand-me-downs, they get to go to a better school, etc etc… Is this good enough for the kids? Apparently not because they are immediately miserable despite this huge improvement from the crowded shack they were living in before. When the kids go to their new school they are picked on by other kids that are something out of an evil textbook. No kids behave this way! While I get that kids at school wouldn’t necessarily be all that nice to “the new kids from the country”, they would NOT be as outwardly aggressive and mean as they were in this movie. Also, there’s no way that the two older kids would not be popular as the girl (Hilary Duff) was this self-centered fashion guru and the guy was A) attractive and B) football player and C) had a dad who coached the university team.

And here’s the rub. The Mom (Hunt) gets a book deal for the novel she’s been writing about the family and has to go on a book tour. Now here’s the thing. The company asks her to go away for the weekend to New York and while she’s there they spring this 2 week book tour on her knowing she has a family at home and gives her the ultimatum that she either goes on this book tour NOW or there’s no book. 1) She’d only packed for the weekend, wouldn’t she have to return home anyway to get enough stuff to last her 2 weeks and to make arrangements for her to be gone that long? 2) What the hell kind of publishing company would force anyone to go on a book tour without first securing everything ELSE going on in their life? 3) What kind of publishing company organizes a massive book tour (including spots on Regis and Kelly AND Oprah) apparently without printing a single book hence the ultimatum? And aren’t there plenty of authors who don’t do all that crap?

Aaaaaanyway, Mom goes on this book tour which leaves Dad home alone to watch the kids. His selfish adult daughter won’t help him out because she wants to hang out with her boyfriend (played by Ashton Kutcher and arguably the only likeable character in the movie) and his two other teenagers are apparently useless because they are never even considered when Dad calls a babysitting company to help him out. Smart move I guess except on the phone he keeps telling them that he needs a sitter for 12 kids. First of all, he has two teenagers and second he has adult daughter that doesn’t even live at home! At the very least he should have either A) said he had 11 kids because logically no one in their right mind would include the kid that doesn’t even live there B) said he had 9 kids because the teenagers don’t need to be babysat C) hired (gasp) TWO sitters or D) had the older kids look after half of the kids and a sitter look after 3 or 4 of the rest.

Any number of reasonable solutions to this non-problem could have been used. This is another one of those situations that could have been avoided if people simply employed some sensibility. I have no respect for movies that want us to ignore these details “because if they didn’t happen we wouldn’t have a movie”. Maybe that’s just an indication that it shouldn’t be a movie in the first place. These inconsistencies aside, what gets me the most, and I mean this really chaps my ass, is that these people can’t seem to realize that Mom is only gone for TWO WEEKS!!! These kids were reasonably well-behaved before but for some reason they can’t seem to contain themselves for two stupid weeks! These are the most selfish, spoiled, unlikable kids I have ever seen in a movie.

*SPOILERS (EVEN MORE THAN ABOVE)*
At the end Dad quits for the sake of the family. Sake of the family? Are we forgetting that the cost of university for 12 kids will be upwards of a million dollars to go to decent schools for 4 years each (in the US) and that’s assuming at least a few will get scholarships? Gah! Why could these kids not simply behave for 2 weeks so their dad could do his job when the movie was opened with this well-oiled family machine in the old house? We expect that they are going to move back to their old house but they don’t and yet everything is happily ever after.

We are left with a lot of unanswered questions in this movie. How are they still able to afford that house when it was a perk from the university at which Dad no longer works? Why, when those kids could ban together to find their missing brother, could they not handle another family “crisis” (their mom being gone) which would only have required that they behave and accept the fact that dad is going to be busy these few weeks and mom will be back later? Why is everyone all happy all of a sudden at the end when Dad quits despite the fact that they are living in the same place and therefore going to the same school with the same contrived problems and now their dad isn’t as happy because he doesn’t have his dream job anymore? Why are the kids in a family of 12 so spoiled and so used to their dad’s attention? Shouldn’t the kids in a family that big be a little more independent? Why did the Oprah people cancel just because of a simple family tiff – are they supposed to be perfect? What kind of lesson are these kids learning here?

Lessons I’ve learned from this movie: if I want something all I have to do is whine a lot and make myself as annoying as possible until eventually things work out my way again and someone else is miserable instead of me because I can’t simply have the patience to wait 2 fucking weeks for a non-problem to resolve itself. This movie was hell ass goddamn infuriating.