Is That a George Lucas Character?
by Scott Hardie on August 9, 2006
Matthew Preston: "If making up words for directions is wrong, I don't want to be fludoo."
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
All King and No Kubrick Make Jack a Dull Boy
I recently got to talking with friends who liked The Shining, both Stephen King's novel and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of it, but who were unaware that King has always loathed the movie, despite its reputation as one of the best horror films ever made. It's hard to imagine that a writer doesn't know his own work better than someone interpreting it, but I think this is one of those rare cases where the writer is just too close to the story to get it. Here are three reasons why I think Kubrick's film better understands the material, and is better overall, than King's novel: 1) In King's version, Jack Torrance is a fundamentally decent man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but who is down on his luck and desperate. Go »Ketchup Packets
I was verbally mugged by a former coworker today, a guy I used to think of as a friend some time ago. I had the displeasure of laying him off last year, and after months of struggling to get by with nothing but condiments in his fridge, he started a blog to vent his frustration at me and a few other coworkers he disliked. The comments are very mean-spirited, from professional criticisms about my managerial competence and decision-making, to personal and apparently very nasty jokes about my weight and appearance. Go »Goodbye Dooce
Dooce.com has given me a lot of laughs over the years, and it's one of the few weblogs I have made a point to visit every day. But lately I just can't get past how much Heather bashes her husband, and with increasing viciousness. Go »Ten Things I Learned While Kelly's Parents Pat & Russ Spent a Week Visiting Us
• Florida reminds me of Dave Barry's quip that vacationing in Britain is great because you meet people from entirely different states. We stopped a woman to take our picture; she was visiting from New Jersey and her daughter beside her was from California. The only local we met warned us what bridge not to jump off for swimming because the water is shark-infested. Go »Bad Housekeeping
If you're lazy like me, there's not a right time to put away the clean dishes. Who cares if you use them one-by-one out of the dishwasher? But there *is* a right time to discover that they're still dirty, and that's long before you're putting away the last couple of items after eating out of the dishwasher for days. Go »
