Friday, July 06, 2007

Press: Men talk just as much as women, study says - HC

Men talk just as much as women, study says - Houston Chronicle: "A University of Texas at Austin psychologist and his colleagues appear to have laid to rest the long-standing myth that women talk more than men. Their study of 400 male and female students in the United States and Mexico found that men and women both say about 16,000 words a day, or 17 words a minute, during waking hours. [...]

The source of [...] the 20,000/7,000 word split, dropped in subsequent editions after psychologists complained about the book's first printing, remains a more serious matter to some scholars. [...] His own inquiry found the earliest use of the figures by James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who employed it as a 'guesstimate.'"

(As usual, Dobson pulls alarmist factoids out of his, um, hat and millions of unthinking followers take them as scientific fact.)

Press: When films come in the mail, do you wait to watch? - HC

When films come in the mail, do you wait to watch? - Houston Chronicle: "Adam Cuthbert, confessed Netflix cheater, blames his infidelities on his and his girlfriend's disparate Netflix drives: 'She lacks stamina,' he says. 'I'm trying to work down the queue. She has no respect for that.'"

Press: It's an Ad. But Is It Art? - TIME

It's an Ad. But Is It Art? - TIME: "And Cavemen? The pilot is much more broad than the ads--there are several club-wielding jokes--and it leans heavily on one gag, the caveman as metaphor for real-life minorities. But it's a funny, hard-hitting gag. A news report about a robbery includes a police sketch of the suspect--a hairy, generic australopithecine; the three cavemen buddies argue the merits of using the slur 'Cro-magger.' ('It's O.K. when we say it.') "

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Language: pecuniary remunerances

Bills, bills, bills! Or for a tongue twister, try saying this three times really fast: pecuniary remunerances, pecuniary remunerances, pecuniary remunerances!

Language: Too informal for business

Here are some overly informal terms of affirmation that I would not recommend for use when writing corporate audio or video scripts:

Exactamundo
Perzactly
All righty then
Smokin'!
Yeppers
Cool beans
Uh-huh
Ey-yup
True dat
Fo' shizzle
Dy-no-mite!
Chah!
Badda-bing badda-boom
Ka-ching
Abso-f---ing-lutely

Neologisms: SFXy

A movie (such as Transformers) that is so full of special effects (SFX in industry parlance) that it is state-of-the-art, highly attractive or "sexy." (Pronounced ess-eff-ex-y or sfex-y.)

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Press: Geek mystique - Suddenly it's hip to be square - HC

Geek mystique: Suddenly it's hip to be square - Houston Chronicle: "Nerds are cool. Who knew?

'Geekdom is front and center, celebrated rather than mocked,' said Michael Slezak, senior writer for Entertainment Weekly's Web site, ew.com. 'There's something appealing about characters getting ahead through their smarts, sense of humor and passion for things they like that aren't necessarily cool.'"

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer (2000)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Darkwing Duck, Seasons 2-3

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The Happy Elf (2005)
(I have the DVD, it's out from IDT.)

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Press: Slugs avoid the slow lane - HC

Slugs avoid the slow lane - Houston Chronicle: "These aren't your typical hitchhikers. They carry laptops. They wear neckties, pink suits with heels. They have iPod headphone cords sprouting from their ears.

And, in a few Houston suburbs, they're a precious commodity. Instead of offering their thumbs, they offer their bums, in your car seat, so you can achieve the 'high occupancy' that lets you breeze down the Interstate 10 HOV in rush-hour traffic."

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Press: Of mice and menus - DMN

Of mice and menus - The Dallas Morning News:

"Was that chervil Remy was about to toss into the soup?

While a theater full of young kids giggled along with the slapstick high jinks of Ratatouille's animated rodent hero at a recent screening, I sat agog at the film's painstaking re-creations of culinary minutiae."