We've Updated Our Privacy Policy

For this, the twenty-second post on Not So Secret, I was going to continue down not-so-distant memory lane, but then the memes started happening. Now, I’m not a meme expert; I just play one on TV, but it still doesn’t take much to notice the emails coming in en-masse with a few simple words as a title: We’re Updating our Privacy Policy. Even this, though, wouldn’t be worth commenting about without this big header at the top of Blogspot’s account page, the most prominent part of which was:

“You are responsible for making sure your readers are aware of these new changes.”

So yes, Blogspot, like most websites, tracks its users’ data. I bolded that part just to make sure it’s prominent enough. Don’t want to run afoul of the law in this particular instance. I understand that this might come as a shock to some of you, and it’s not not scary. But I also think that we’re past the point of no return on the internet in this regard. They don’t call this the information age for no reason.

I wish I had more to say about this. I wish I was more informed. Instead, I can only leave you with this:

-F

Raindrops on Roses (Part Four) -- Upstream Color

(trailer)

"Yeah, it’s a comedy. It’s a romantic comedy, come on."

Writer/Director/etcetera Shane Carruth puts it best in the above video, but I’m going to try and say it myself anyways: It’s really hard to describe exactly what this movie is about. Whenever I try, I get to the part about the pigs and the weird back-alley surgery and the hypno-drugs and that’s when people’s eyes start to glaze over and they just nod along, probably silently judging me as one of “those” film nerds who needs every shot to have a deeper significance or I’m just not interested.

To be fair, they wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

But that isn’t to say that Upstream Color isn’t watchable besides that. It has a fairly straightforward plot, all things considered, it’s just that the plot is still a little “out there” and “metaphysical.” There’s romance, and drama comes from their relationship, but it’s also implied that the drama is neither of their faults. There’s a thriller aspect to it, but no direct conflict against an antagonist until the final moments. It’s science-fiction, but those aspects all but disappear after the first act.

Again, the creator put it best. It’s a film about identity, and how people build their own using bits and pieces of everything they can find. Both Kris and Jeff have had their lives crumble around them, and it’s all they can do to help each other come back up.

Next time on Raindrops on Roses: A bit of Richard Scary, a bit of H.P. Lovecraft, and a bit of, well, this movie. But also none of that.

-F

Milestones

Magic: the Gathering’s 25th anniversary is this year. Which is great, I mean, I have fun with it, and I wish it all the best. But there’s this common phrase that keeps getting tossed around, whether that be in official articles or fan forums: “Happy twenty-fifth, Magic. Here’s to twenty-five more.”

Of course this is not only a Magic-related phrase. Anniversaries, especially of companies, like to use this phrase too. It’s a good phrase, wishing longevity upon the birthday boy/girl/nongendered pronoun/company and an implication of hoping that the next set of years will be just like the previous one.

But that’s a troublesome hope, isn’t it? A lot of companies have pretty troublesome periods. At one point in Magic’s history, for example, the designers messed up so poorly and so many people stopped playing that the entire design team was called into a meeting and yelled at. Do we really want to wish getting yelled at on anyone?

And then there’s also the problem of incredibly long anniversaries. Ohio’s bicentennial was fifteen years ago, but when people say “Here’s to two hundred more,” it feels to me like they’ve forgotten just how long two-hundred years is. At this point, though, social convention frowns on anything else. If you say, “Happy twenty-fifth, Magic. Here’s to another five more,” it sounds like you’re wishing ruin, instead of, you know, hoping they make it to the next milestone.

My goal, the reason I started this blog, was because I wanted to write one post a week for a year (anything after that is just gravy). I wrote this post because it’s the twentieth post on Not So Secret, and I wanted to think of a good way to celebrate. So happy twentieth post, Not So Secret. Here’s to thirty-two more.

-F

Back to your Regularly Scheduled Complaining

The Raindrops on Roses series has definitely helped out content-wise, I think, but reminiscing on not-even-that-old media is certainly not the only thing I want to be writing about every week. So here’s some snippets from work. Certainly nothing as important as a missing oven mitt (not bitter!) but still things that yuck my yum, so to speak:

The new name change has rolled out to every location, not just certain test markets, which I think is a huge mistake. I’m reminded of Activision-Blizzard renaming their game launcher and store page from BattleNet to Blizzard Games, which went over so poorly that developers resorted to calling it “BattleNe-- I mean Blizzard Games”. I don’t think we in the food service are anywhere near as prevalent as the World of Warcraft/Hearthstone/Overwatch installer, but literally nobody lower than a regional manager has ever said “Noodles: World Kitchen”.

New uniforms! Corporate wants the uniforms to be as bright and inviting as the new paint job, so of course the new shirt color is dark green. This is compounded by the fact that apparently they’re not mandatory any more? I’ve lost count at how many times someone’s not wearing their hat or has a black jacket on over their T-shirt.

Lastly, zucchini noodles are now on the menu. They’re long peeled strips of zucchini that can be used as a substitute in any of our dishes, though we recommend them with a new romesco sauce or with our green curry. It’s actually really good, but I get customers with inane questions like, “I don’t really like zucchini, will I like this?” and I have to resist the urge to just stare.

Also, the corporate term for these is “Zoodles”, which is just the worst.

-F

Raindrops on Roses (Part Three) -- The Phantom Tollbooth

(Trailer? Wait…)

Okay, so I’m obviously not going to talk about a movie I haven’t seen, just the book it’s based on. And what it’s based on was supposed to be a children’s book about cities, or so the story goes. But Norton Juster got sidetracked, and instead wrote The Phantom Tollbooth, a children’s book about, well…

So we’re introduced to Milo, an unsatisfied young boy (if that’s even possible for a boy his age), who finds himself in possession of a model tollbooth. When he goes through it, he finds himself in the Kingdom of Wisdom. One thing leads to another and suddenly he’s on a quest to rescue Princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air.

The book’s twenty chapters are largely episodic. In each, Milo meets someone new, and after they talk for a bit, they either give Milo a gift, are outwitted by Milo, or both, with such wonderful characters as King Azaz the unabridged, or the Tallest Dwarf and the Smallest Giant, and I still use Chroma’s chapter as a reference to describe sunrises.

I called this “a children’s book for adults” last week because there’s no way the average twelve-year-old understands all of the wordplay hidden within the book. For example, just outside the Mountains of Ignorance, Milo and his friends meet the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a bird who twists words around (“I didn’t mean--” “Of course you’re mean. Anyone who’d spend a night that didn’t belong to him is very mean.”) He’s not from Ignorance, though. He’s from a far away place called Context, and spends as much time as possible away from it.

I didn’t get that joke at age twelve. That’s why I think this book is worth reading (or rereading, as it were). There are a lot of details that are easily missed the first time around, and even on the fifth read-through, you’re still likely to find something new.

-F