The supermarket did not have Chianti. I talked to four employees, and they did not know what Chianti is. (“Candy?”) Does no one watch “Silence of the Lambs” anymore? What do hippie college students use for candleholders if they don’t have Chianti bottles?
“Elf” + “Enchanted” = “Noelle”
The premise of the movie “Noelle” is that Santa Claus is a family business, with each Santa passing the pom-pom to his son. A few months ago, the last Santa died, and the responsibilty to pilot the sleigh falls on son Nick, who doesn’t want to do it and is terrible at it. Nick’s sister, Noelle, advises him to take a weekend to relax in someplace warm, and he does so—and disappears.
Now everybody in the North Pole is mad at Noelle. “Noelle” continues the tradition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in portraying most of the denizens of Santa’s village as jerks.
Noelle tracks Nick to Phoenix, where Nick has reinvented himself as a yoga instructor, and she attempts to get him to return to the North Pole and fulfill his responsibility.
All of this is in the movie trailer, and if you watch the trailer, you can figure out how the movie ends.
Noelle is played with, well, elfen adorableness by Anna Kendrick of the “Pitch Perfect” trilogy, which I haven’t seen, and the 2009 Great Recession dark comedy “Up in the Air,” starring George Clooney as a consultant who specializes in laying people off. I did see that one—on the day I myself got laid off—and loved it.
Nick is played with gormless charm by Bill Hader, of “Saturday Night Live” and “Barry.”
Also featured are Shirley MacLaine as a grouchy elf; Julie “Airplane” Hagerty as Mrs. Claus; and several scene-stealing CGI reindeer, particularly a little white reindeer named Snow-Cone.
Kingsley Ben-Adir plays a divorced father facing his first Christmas alone without his family, in a storyline that’s surprisingly moving for such a fluffy movie.
Both Julie and I enjoyed “Noelle.”
“Noelle” is the latest of my ongoing series of completely avoiding important or consequential entertainment, because the news is consequential enough, inspired by John Scalzi’s December Comfort Watches.
Here’s Scalzi’s review of “Noelle.”, from which I learn that “Noelle” was written and directed by Marc Lawrence, who also wrote and directed “Music & Lyrics,” which starred Hugh Grant as a washed-up 80s pop music star who experiences a career comeback as a songwriter after he meets and partners with aspiring lyricist Drew Barrymore. “Music & Lyrics” is a solid romantic comedy—like “Noelle,” it’s fluff entertainment—and also a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of the value of fluff entertainment. I’d like to see “Music & Lyrics” again.
“Some thoughts on the real world by one who glimpsed it and fled." Bill Watterson’s 1990 commencement speech at Kenyon College.
Lately, I’ve been realizing the value of having something that excites me enough to jump out of bed for it. So, I’ve decided to fully immerse myself in whatever comes next, knowing that these enjoyable times might not last forever.
Here’s the thing: whether or not these obsessions lead to something useful in work or life isn’t the main point, although they often do. More importantly, as various monks and philosophers say, the greatest happiness for humans is to live in the moment.
Apparently, when humans have free time, they tend to stress over the past and future instead of focusing on the present.
Thus, those who discover a hobby they can deeply immerse themselves in are fortunate….
Tyler Cowen: Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?
Stackexchange discussion: Can Microsoft Flight Simulator help me learn to fly (or make me a better pilot)?
Ace Atkins bids Robert B. Parker’s Spenser farewell. After 10 novels, Atkins looks back at what makes the Boston detective character so compelling.
The Surprising Possibilities of See-Through Wood. Transparent wood is tougher than transparent plastic and glass and has potential practical applications in smartphone screens, insulated windows and more.
How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections. Continual reinfection was not the “new normal” Biden advertised. How did we get here?
Walking the dog in the park this morning, I saw a runner wearing a Santa hat, a runner wearing a Christmas sweater, and a pack of bicyclists that included one wearing a rope of Christmas lights around his neck—the old-style, big teardrop-shaped lights.
Every once in a while, I pick up a call from an unidentified caller rather than letting it ring through. It’s almost always a telemarketer or other variety of scammer. And then I’m disappointed because I can’t think of a way to mess with them.
Maybe I should take improv classes?
I’m intrigued by Dave Winer’s distinction between conversation and publishing. He’s talked elsewhere about blogging as a kind of thinking out loud.
BlueSky upgrade: Now you can see Profiles and posts on the web without logging in, and it also supports RSS feeds.
I want a single client for all the Twitter spinoffs: Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads all in one place. RSS and Tumblr too. This step by BlueSky is a step in the right direction.
How to draw irregularly shaped polygons, such as L-shaped boxes, using Excalidraw
This was a pain for me to figure out but once I got it figured it, it was simple.
Use the line tool. Instead of clicking and then dragging—which will draw a single line—click at the start of your shape, then click on the next corner, and then the next corner, and so on until you’re done.
To close the shape, your final click should be on the starting point. You can customize with the fill tool—if you do, then when you close the shape, you’ll automatically get a color fill.
Use the curved-line selection for wavy edges, and the straight-line selection for nice, straight edges.
If you don’t close the shape, you end up with a multi-point or wavy line instead.
Here’s a video that shows you how to use the line tool with clear written instructions in the extended caption.
I should illustrate this with screenshots but I need to move on now. Maybe another time.
Yet another example why YouTube instruction videos for software are evil and you should use written documentation instead
I needed to draw an L-shaped box for a diagram. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to draw it using Excalidraw. I found this YouTube video. I then had to figure out why the audio wouldn’t play. I had this problem yesterday and thought I had resolved it but I guess not.
After ten minutes of that, I tried a different video and the audio played just fine.
Aha, I said to myself—audio does not play because there is no audio.
I scrubbed back and forth in the video trying to figure out what they were doing. No luck.
Then I expanded the caption and discovered there are also detailed instructions in the caption. Hooray!
I fiddled for about two minutes and got a nice, L-shaped box.
That was easy! I declared to myself.
Conclusions:
- YouTube instructional videos for software are evil. Please, please, please just give me written documentation with diagrams, and maybe the occasional animated GIF to illustrate where to click and mouse around and so forth.
- That’s really weird usage of the word “easy.”
Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker: In 2024, the Tension Between Macroculture and Microculture Will Turn into War. Alt creators such as YouTube stars and Substack authors are overtaking traditional media, and traditional media is oblivious to the race.