Minions and Rivals.

http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=090712

Friday was, of course, another movie. I took some manga to read at Lick's at lunch, and then saw Brüno. I was actually somewhat disappointed. I really enjoyed Borat, but just being gay and coming on to people, or having a fake Austrian accent, or continually referring to your anus as your 'Auschwitz', just isn't that funny. How many times can you wear a ridiculous costume in public and have people stair and still laugh?

I cringed through the first half hour. It did start getting better. There's a part where he's interviewing parents for a photo shoot, and he's asking them outrageous questions, whether their kids will drive dangerous equipment, lose weight, get liposuction - they would do anything. But most of it was just worth a chuckle.

"The baby is a dick magnet."

The velcro suit.

Hello?!

The evening started at home, doing laundry and such, and then i talked to Miah. We picked up a DVD (The Spirit, which was cheesy fun, but should've been better), and watched it at his place.

Today, i should've been going to an art show with friends, but they were late getting their act together. Bah! Phoned Lis, but they're busy with family stuff tonight.

I took a streetcar ride between the movies, and took some photos too. This is on the Spadina streetcar, north of College.

The second movie i saw was Et Dieu... Créa La Femme, (And God Created Woman), by Roger Vadim, the one that made Brigitte Bardot famous.

She plays Juliette, a 'wild girl', or at least kind of a free spirit (often no shoes, or any clothes at all), and rather available (ahem), on the French Riviera. A wealthy, charming, older man is interested in her (although a bit too fathery, and not the dancing type she wants), but she wants his business rival, young Antoine (whose interests are very short term). When threatened with being sent back to her orphanage by her guardians, tired of her attitude, she ends up accepting a marriage proposal from Antoine's earnest younger brother Michel, who adores her, but is pretty blind to things. Adapting to her new life becomes difficult (not that she really does any work). Light weight, even in the 60s, and i HOPE we've evolved since then. At least we now have robots with our (technologically-enhanced) sex kittens.

"You are at the point of falling for her."
"What makes you say that?"
"Whenever you look at her, you appear less intelligent."

The trouble with in-laws: "What are you doing in my bed?"

Thursday i went in to the city - a little late, but early enough to catch two movies.

The first movie i saw was Food, Inc., a documentary on the industrialization and corporatization of food. There may be images of old time farms on the boxes, but the chickens and cattle are crammed together, standing in their own crap, pumped full of anti-biotics and growth hormones, fed subsidized, pesticide-laden corn. Even if you decide to go vegetarian, food processing plants are so laden with bacteria, that you're more likely to get salmonella, E. coli or listeria from your salad (at least you can kill it by cooking your meat - counters might not be clean). Most of the processing is done by a few very large corporations - we have less choice than it looks, many farmers have none (only one compnay to sell to), and they even own the seeds, so now you can't save a portion of your grain for replanting like farmers have done for the past 10,000 years. And they also hire illegal immigrants on a large scale.

It was a good documentary, more of an introduction to the topic, because it was kind of shallow in places, and really could be a lot longer. The issue of subsidies and protectionism is an interesting one, because subsidies for American corn are so high - that is, it can be sold for less than it costs to make, it helps drive poor farmers in the third world out of business (so does food donations, but that's a whole other story). It's also part of the reason junk food is so cheap - corn is a very versatile product, and can make both the starchy bulk of junk food, and the sweetness (hi-fructose corn syrup), but in these forms, it's not very healthy. So, government is essentially subsidizing junk food.

It's cheaper to eat junk food - unless you count diabetes (which the man on the right has).

I couldn't find a shot of someone dragging dead animals out of the 'barn'.

A guy who does it the old-fashioned way.

BioRequiem Etsy: selected oil paintings and prints. Many of you will have seen her line art in COILHOUSE. As Zo-bot itself says, once these are gone, they’re gone forever. And since she’s doing more and more gallery shows, you’re unlikely to see them this cheap again.

IT SAYS OBEY.