Love is on the horizon

I originally titled this entry "This is funny."

From someone's Technorati profile:

I am a seeker of truth. I am a student of astrology... I plan to become a life coach and continue my astrological studies. Until then, join me as I search for meaning in everyday life.

Some people really are lost in a world of bullshit.

Pardon me, I mean they're Aimless.

I almost coined a word

Just a little bit ago, as I was reading something on this here computer, I came across the word 'democracy.' For some reason, after reading the word, I immediately thought of another word, 'documentary,' and my mind turned the two words into one: Democumentary.

I thought, "Wow, that could actually be a functional word; I wonder if anyone has ever thought of it before," and I proceded to do a Google search for "democumentary." Unfortunately I wasn't quite the first person to mix those two words into one, but I was close.

Aimless

You disappoint me, HBO

So there's this new documentary on HBO called "The Journalist and the Jihadi," which I watched last night. Well, sorta watched. This is one of those documentaries you don't really have to watch, because the content is all in the audio. The Journalist and the Jihadi is a talkumentary, not a documentary.

Now I expect that kind of shit out of A&E because they constantly air ancient episodes of Bill Kurtis shows, which are nothing more than talk talk talk, yap yap yap, boring boring boring. But I expect much more from HBO. (In fact, I had been drafting an entry weeks ago, contrasting A&E/Bill Kurtis Productions to Spike Lee/HBO's "When the Levees Broke," which had my eyes glued to the TV for 4 hours and 15 minutes.)

The constant talking in The Journalist and the Jihadi made me close my eyes. It literally gave me a headache because there was so much talking and because the pictures were mostly meaningless. For a while I stopped paying attention to what people were saying and started listening to the empty spaces between yapping to see if they could manage even a 2-second gap in the yap. They couldn't do it. Finally I couldn't take anymore, so I changed the channel.

Y'all surely know the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," right? (Duh.) Well, many documentarians consider it absolute truth when it comes to making documentaries. The best documentarians consider it absolute truth. On the opposite side of the spectrum, as I so clearly witnessed last night, a thousand words isn't worth a picture. 20,000 words is not worth 20 pictures. I don't know how many words there are in The Journalist and the Jihadi, but there are thousands and thousands too many, and it was extremely irritating.

The Journalist and the Jihadi does not need to be on a visual media. The Journalist and the Jihadi should not be on a visual media. It should be on the radio or in a book. Radio and books are sound/word media. Film and video are for pictures!

I tend to think of most HBO documentaries as pretty high quality stuff. I'm talking about content quality, not necessarily production quality. But The Journalist and the Jihadi didn't even come close. I wanted to know about its subject (Daniel Pearl), but I didn't want it to be so much work, and I won't try again next time it's on.

You puzzle me, HBO. Why do you devote so much time, money, and effort to bad documentaries like The Journalist and the Jihadi (and Plastic Disasters, which I also thought would be good until I watched it) but then ignore me when I contact you about Aimless? Jesus Christ, I could have called Aimless "America Undercover" (which, as many people know, is the label or brand HBO attaches to many or most of its documentaries).

What happens when I do this? journalist jihadi hbo

Aimless

What a start

A good story during the Virginia Tech/Boston College football game last night:

Boston College's regular starting kicker did not play last night (either because of injury or suspension--I'm not sure), and their back-up kicker is a walk-on who, just last year, watched BC games as a fan in the stands. That's not such an unusual story, right? Every team has walk-ons that eventually get significant playing time. Yeah, but this guy had never played in a football game before last night. Never played in a college football game and never played in a high school football game. His first participation on any kind of organized football team came in an important ACC conference game on national TV.

Unless I missed something, the dude ended up 2 for 2 on extra points and 2 for 2 on field goal attempts.

I'm impressed. And even though I really don't care about Boston College, the story made me feel good. I'm happy for the guy and I wish everyone could have a similar experience. (That is, except for true evildoers like George Bush. Fuck Bush. Even his dad wants him dead.)

Aimless