Tuesday stuff

[yendi]

Scene from our life:

shadesong was explaining her fascination with John Cusack to docorion, saying that every girl in the late '80s fell in love with him when he held up the boombox in Say Anything.

Me: They call that the Dobler Effect.

Other items of note:

docorion made a very yummy chicken cacciatore last night, and I'm still rather full.

We caught yet another House rerun last night. Thanks to the increased pacing of reruns, it's likely that we'll only have missed four episodes by the time the new season starts.

Much as I love House, I do get a wee bit frustrated at the continued happy endings. Scrubs (which is still the best medical show of the last fifteen years) regularly has folks die.

Our Tivo has Prison Break scheduled. Hark, the new fall season approaches! And the looming Lost/Veronica Mars timeslot disaster approaches, as well. :-(

Work: busy. Duh. Sorry, as always, about not responding to comments or even reading much LJ. But there's this whole time thing. And frankly, I'm just too wiped when I get home to hop online. Computers aren't stress relief when you stare at them all day.

Tivo, on the other hand, is. So is a new Jasper Fforde novel.

And a post I started at 7:45 in the morning finally gets posted at 10:45.

Comments

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I like Jasper Fforde novels. They all seem too cute for me.

Watching Say Anything again, it seems pretty obvious that Diane totally doesn't deserve Lloyd. The amount of shit that guy puts up for that girl is unimaginable.

House is the same storyline every time. Opening scene where patient collapses. Credits. House comes in, does a few opening diagnosises. Rejects others. Gets it wrong twice. One time the patient almost dies (usually by the 26 minute mark) and in the last ten minutes he figures it out and gets the treatment that the patient needs - no matter how many bureaucratic hurdles he must overcome.

There are pill popping scenes and the final music scored scene as well, but those aren't always involved.

I think we all just watch it because Hugh Laurie is so damn good.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Maybe there is something wrong with me because I DON'T love John Cusack because of Lloyd Dobler. Indeed, Say Anything was unsettling.... Because, hello, STALKER.

I was far more amused by Better Off Dead and other movies....

As a friend of mine recently observed, it's okay to be Lloyd Dobler when you're 16. When you're 26, it's not okay and when you're 36, it's just plain creepy.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'Me: They call that the Dobler Effect.'

OH NO YOU DI'INT.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

So what about being Rob Gordan when you're 36?

At very least Rob Gordan isn't Mr. Perfect "play the boombox at you but then go away and cry and wait for you to get upset about your dad and..." oh wait.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. He did.

It was horrible. The earth shook, the stars trembled in their courses, there was fire and flood...

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, I never saw that connection before. And it's in Grosse Pointe Blank too:

(1) Girl dumps Cusack
(2) Girl's father goes to jail/dies/has a hit placed on him
(3) Cusack is there for girl
(4) Girl takes Cusack back.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I have.... Issues is the nicest way to put it. I have issues with the film version of High Fidelity. You know what? I have issues with the book as well.

Rob Gordan needs a good shaking. Then he needs to grow the hell up.

*yoga breathing*

Nick Hornby is a great writer, but gah.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's just a Cusack schtick though. It's this classic storyline in which a woman moves from the house/protection of her father to the house/protection of her lover.

Ew.

I feel kind of unclean now.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Yes. He definitely needs to grow up, but he has to do it on his own terms. But he does grow up even if it's subtle (I love the scene in the book where he must admit that very nice and good people can have very terrible and horrible taste in music).

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

...and shadesong went *headtable* and shrieked 'YOU SEE??? YOU SEE THE EVIL PUNS I HAVE TO LIVE WITH???'

yendi: 'Well, I've always been known for my perfect punmanship.'

shadesong: 'AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'

docorion: '...I'll just be over here.'

[digriz.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, there was an article recently from CBC that talked about the exact same "Dobler Effect", although without the horrid pun.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/cusack.html

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

My tolerance for whining has decreased sharply over the past few years. I love Cusack's sad puppy eyes and his generally exuberant hair styles, but so many of his characters are teh whiny!

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

I heard that they switched Lost to 9 PM instead of 8. (Not that I've seen Veronica Mars, so I can't help you with the other part of the equation, but there you are.)

[yendi]

*nod* and UPN then moved VM from Tuesdays at 9 to Wednesdays at 9. :-(

[yendi]

They did fiddle a bit near the end of last season (the med school lecture episode was brilliant), and I do want to see more of that. Otherwise, the formula will get old no matter how good the acting is.

[yendi]

See, to me, that's part of the point of the book and the movie -- Rob is immature, and not presented as a role model. He's basically a lucky bastard who's messed up multiple great relationships, underestimated his friends, and just had things fall in his lap. But Hornby (and Cusack) always seemed aware of that.

[yendi]

Yep. And it was spontaneous, too.

[yendi]

See, if they'd had the pun, the article would have been even better.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I get that, I really do. But it doesn't make experiencing the book (and much less the movie because OMG Jack Black I want to put him in a closet and forget about his existence for the rest of time) any more of an enjoyable, worthwhile experience.

Deep explorations of wangst just aren't my kink.

My husband made a comment about that as well.

[valeriana.livejournal.com]

Concerning House. We missed most of the first season and are just now catching up on it in re-runs. As he put it, "I'm kind of glad we didn't get to see the season as it went, because this way, we don't have to wait months and months for the next season."

I think the show is fascinating, but yeah, as you said, it always seems to have a happy ending so far. That's nice and all, but I'm wondering if next season they're going to have anyone who he can't fix in time.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

John who, now?

Kidding. I've just never seen most of the mandatory "girls" (aka just about anything anyone in the Brat Pack was in) movies from the 80's. Actually...I don't think I've seen any of them, though I did recently pick up Sixteen Candles and St. Elmo's Fire on video at garage sales. Oh, and The Breakfast Club, which I have at least seen snippets of.

Does this make me a bad 80's teen?

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*nods* I preferred Lane Meyer to Lloyd Dobler, myself. :) Was just 'splaining to the Doc the whole child-of-the-80s cultural-zeitgeist thing of him holding up the boombox...

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I think that's definitely an oft-referenced moment, but.... I just don't get why, ultimately. I don't dispute the cultural occurence, I just can't help but think STALKER STALKER every time I see it. *grin*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*looks for the hidden cameras in the kitchen, because that is word-for-word what happened*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Hey, the same girls think "Every Breath You Take" is soooo romantic... :)

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Creepy!

*grin*

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Me: They call that the Dobler Effect.

You're so lucky we all like you.

[eldritch00.livejournal.com]

"The Dobler effect" made me laugh so hard. Until I realized that the reason why I was so amused by it might have to do with the fact that I think I fell in love with him at that moment in the film too.

[yendi]

*innocent look*

I make puns. What's not to like.

[yendi]

Does this make me a bad 80's teen?

Yes. Yes, it does.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. Nothing to be done about it now, I suppose.

[yendi]

Thanks to the wonders of DVD and cable, it's never too late!

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

You mean...there's hope? I...could become versed in the culture of my youth? Oh, happy day!