guess what sucks.

Being patronized. Dude, whatever. I don’t think it’s the best thing for you to treat someone like a bratty step-child because you have the money, and in some measure, the final say. We might be a bother, but we’re totally in the right to be such, because we have been treated unfairly and we want redress.

I realize that I just switched without notice from “I” to “we,” and I realize that none of this means anything to anybody out there; it’s all just so much venting that I need to do before I have to be diplomatic, so apologies if anyone happened to read this (ha, I know) and is confused. Or nosy.

sweet validation

Remember Bastard the Music Master who lives beneath me, and who I mentioned a couple of days ago? Well, it turns out that I am not alone in being annoyed and driven nuts by him. He has managed to screw up someone else’s morning, and I am saved from being thought an unreasonable silence maniac. He was at it again this morning, at freaking 5 AM. I was already awake, so only peeved instead of thirsty for his blood, but I still went down to knock on his door and tell him to shut it, because seriously. I got to the door and saw someone had beaten me to it, in a more passive-aggressive fashion. They left a note. And it was awesome. I took a picture. I’m going to post it as soon as I can find my camera transfer cord thingy.

Wacky update: So, I finally found my camera cord, but upon looking at the note again, I decided that the language of it is a bit too coarse to put out in the universe. Or at least the part of it that belongs to me. And if I blurred out the coarseness, there’d be something like three words left in the note, which would convey nothing of its overall awesomeness. So, you’ll have to live with using your imaginations on this one.

Wacky update II: Adrian’s Revenge: So, he was up to his old tricks again recently, and unluckily for everyone the office was closed that day for a meeting. But! some enterprising and totally fed up somebody had to make their dissatisfaction known in what I have to say is a brilliant way. I give you the best noisy neighbor note I’ve ever seen ever in life:

 

Yup. That’s pretty much the business right there. I especially love the two responses. Way to build community, y’all.

who the heck is it?

So um, as I’m busy procrastinating compiling my reading list this afternoon, all of a sudden, someone comes by and lays on my doorbell. Lays on it, I mean. I don’t answer the bell if I’m not expecting anyone, because who knows who it could be? And everyone I know here knows me well enough to know (you might have to read that back again) to call if they’re coming over. I don’t just get up and answer the door. I don’t do people dropping by unannounced.

Not to be refused though, whoever this was that came by me just now just would not let the bell go for like, two minutes. I wish I had that kind of determination. Well I guess I do, seeing that I myself wouldn’t answer the door for like, two minutes. Go me.

Anyway, if you read this, oh mysterious visitor of mystery, give me a call next time and I’ll let you in. Probably.

In other news, I’ll be darned if this (following) isn’t the funniest and funnest commercial ever. I’ve had it stuck in my head for weeks and weeks and I reminded myself when I said “go me,” and it always makes me smile and I’ve always wanted to experiment with embedding a YouTube clip, so bam!

I said a beef hot link!

the sweets of apartment living

Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic! [/Homer Simpson]

For somewhere around three years I’ve been making it after all on my own in the big city, and I can’t say how eye-opening and instructive the experience has been for me. Where before, I would’ve bet anybody dollars to donuts that most people in apartment buildings understand the concepts of shared space and consideration for others, now when I’m three years older and wiser, I’ve come to the conclusion that either (a) most renters are, in fact, inconsiderate pricks, (2) I’m some sort of intolerant shrew who can’t stand to hear other people breathe, or (III) there is a little black rain cloud of “renter’s doom” that follows me wherever I try to set up house. Of course, I’m leaning toward (a), since that explanation absolves me of all wrongdoing without making me feel helpless, and because I’m cranky with a monster headache right now.

“inventing” jane

So, yeah. I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen. A Janeite. A hideous, howling, bitter and lonely spinster, according to some characterizations, even though I flatter myself that I’m none of those adjectives, and I lay proud claim to the noun.

The new biopic glorified fanfiction “biopic” Becoming Jane, the latest and splashiest of films designed to cash in on the “Austen!” brand, has been getting all kinds of attention in the press, and the angrifying promos have been all over the TV, in general making the film more irritating to me than it ever had to be. I wasn’t planning to see it, because no way was I going to pay for a ticket, but then I stumbled into a free advanced screening, so I figured I might as well go and get indignant. Mission accomplished.

I went with a friend who doesn’t know much about Austen, on purpose to keep all my foamy-mouthed ranting at a minimum, and even then I still had a bit of angry to repress. Yes, it’s filled with things that I don’t think Jane Austen would do. Yes, they got some Georgian customs and details of everyday life all wrong, and yes, I feel they completely trivialized Austen’s own artistry by implying, or really concluding, that Lefroy was responsible for all of her imagination. These are definitely heinous offenses. But even aside from the gratuitous liberties that this film takes with the relationships, motivations, events, and even the people in Austen’s life (Mr. Wisley? The heck is that?), my other great big complaint is that it just isn’t a very good film. And, much like Catherine Morland, I wonder that it all should fall so flat, since many aspects of the characters and their speeches are all either invented, or straight-up lifted from Jane’s novels.

I found the movie not only flimsy, but lazily constructed. Lefroy was unappealing himself — judgmental, hypocritical and overbearing — and it turns out I found the smart, shy, and wholly made up character of Mr. Wisley to be much more attractive in general. They didn’t do a good job of convincing me that Austen would turn down his proposal because he stutters a bit. Oh, unless I was just supposed to fall instantly in love with Lefroy because hey! he is a free spirit, and he gets the mess punched out of him, and flirts with wine whores, and tells Jane her writing sucks … ? Sure. The one good thing in the whole is Anna Maxwell Martin’s endearing portrayal of Cassandra Austen. She and her (non-period) pretty pink gown that I now covet were all that kept me from throwing popcorn at the screen, even though she only has about ten minutes of screen time tops to steal the show with. Everyone else is so unfleshed, and all their conversations are just these constant flying punchlines that don’t hit very hard. They didn’t evoke any deeper reaction in me than “Ooh, no he didn’t!”

I also could’ve done without the ridiculously corny meet-in-late-life scene where they see what they’ve each given up. But that’s the perfect example of why this thing fails for me. I mean besides the obvious. It’s all so much dropping of angsty anvils and protesting against being just a romantic comedy, but ultimately there’s no real depth to the story or the characters, or even the resolution (“I’ll save him because he won’t save himself”? Please. It’s been done in a dozen “Moment of Truth” movies that I can see for free on LMN.), so I can’t take it seriously. It’s too formulaic. I can’t even give it the backhand slap of calling it pretty, as I did that other bastardization of P&P. You know the one I mean.

I did laugh at the “Can anything be done about it” line, because Maggie Smith rules. And I will say that Anne Hathaway did a much better job than Keira Knightley at playing Elizabeth Bennet.