86 minutes, so a good length, the right length. Mockumentary from New Zealand. Goofy, silly fun, but you sort of have to be in the mood for it. I watched it at 2x ffwd to retain the audio. Chronicles the lives of four vampire housemates. Had a strong gay vibe to me, set off my gay-dar for some reason. But it was fun, and cute. Still won't get a coveted green rating ... I give this only a yellow (consider). Rex gave it a green. (Rex is gay.)
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes
Here are the top 30 schools in New York state that participated in the Math League contest last year for the sixth grade. The lists for grades seven and eight are similar, but not exact. I've rearranged the list geographically, and noted the "Great School" (GS) rating for all the public schools, which I think makes for more interesting reading.
1 New Exploration into Science Tech & Math New York 165 (Manhattan) (GS10)
2 PS 334 - Anderson School New York 164 (Manhattan) (GS10)
5 Park East Day School New York 150 (Manhattan) (Private - Jewish)
9 Friends Seminary New York 142 (Manhattan) (Private - Quaker)
12 NYC Lab School New York 136 (Manhattan) (GS10)
18 Speyer Legacy School New York 123 (Manhattan) (Private -- Founded in 2009)
20 Ramaz Middle School New York 119 (Manhattan) (Private - Jewish)
21 Grace Church School New York 118 (Manhattan) (Private)
25 Special Music School New York 112 (Manhattan) (GS9)
6 Horace Mann School Bronx 148 (Bronx) (Private)
3 Mark Twain IS 239 Brooklyn 163 (Brooklyn) (GS10)
4 Big Apple Academy Brooklyn 162 (Brooklyn) (Private)
21 Yeshivah of Flatbush Brooklyn 118 (Brooklyn) (Private - Jewish)
25 Poly Prep Country Day School Brooklyn 112 (Brooklyn) (Private)
11 Russell Sage JHS 190 Forest Hills 138 (Queens) (GS9)
14 P.S. 188 - The Kingsbury School Bayside 134 (Queens) (GS10)
29 Daniel Carter Beard JHS 189 Flushing 106 (Queens) (GS7)
7 Oceanside Union Free SD Oceanside 147 (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS9)
9 Shelter Rock ES Manhasset 142 (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS10)
12 Munsey Park ES Manhasset 136 (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS10)
8 Felix V. Festa MS West Nyack 143 (Rockland County) (GS8)
17 Suffern Middle School Suffern 125 (Rockland County) (GS9)
24 Ardsley Middle School Ardsley 116 (Westchester County) (GS9)
16 Iroquois Middle School Niskayuna 126 (Albany / Schenectady suburb) (GS9)
19 Ballston Spa MS Ballston Spa 120 (Saratoga Springs suburb) (GS8)
15 Johanna Perrin MS Fairport 127 (Rochester suburb) (GS9)
21 Martha Brown Middle School Fairport 118 (Rochester suburb) (GS9)
27 Nichols School Buffalo 110 (Buffalo) (Private)
30 Elmwood-Franklin School Buffalo 105 (Buffalo) (Private)
28 Lansing Middle School Lansing 107 (Tompkins County) (GS8)
...
Additional schools taken from 7th and 8th grade contests:
Collegiate School New York (Manhattan) (Private)
Salanter Akiba Riverdale (SAR) Academy Riverdale (Bronx) (Private - Jewish)
Louis Pasteur MS 67 Little Neck (Queens) (GS10)
Baccalaureate Sch. for Global Educ. Astoria (Queens) (GS10)
IS 237--Rachel L. Carson Flushing (Queens) (GS9)
Great Neck North MS Great Neck (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS10)
Jericho MS Jericho (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS10)
Herricks Middle School Albertson (Long Island, Nassau County) (GS10)
Paul J. Gelinas JHS East Setauket (Long Island, Suffolk County) (GS9)
Solomon Schechter School Hartsdale (Westchester County) (Private - Jewish)
Rye Country Day School Rye (Westchester County) (Private)
Sweet Home Middle School Amherst (Buffalo) (GS6) (!)
Jamesville DeWitt MS Jamesville (Syracuse suburb) (GS10)
85 minutes, which is the right length. A W.D. By movie. Unable to ffwd since I streamed it using Netflix. Marnie's boyfriend Charlie is Miranda Hobbes' son and is known as James White. James is a real slacker and self-destructive to boot. Despite not having his shit together in the least, he's a handsome bastard who can pick up girls in bars and have sex with them the same night (the lucky prick). Anyway, his Mom (Miranda) is dying of some unspecified cancer, but she's also delusional at times, which is confusing. She's manipulative too. James is her caregiver (all day at first, and later, only at night). It's a bummer. This is a depressing movie, not a bad movie, just depressing. Reminded me a little bit of Shame (which I *loved*). And there are some very funny scenes. Definitely a yellow rating (consider), not a red.
George Cocksucker Bush
95 minutes, which is the right length. I did watch it at 2x ffwd, which I do a lot these days, since it was a talk talk talk movie. The story is about a childless English couple who are about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary (the husband is 79, the wife is 70), when they get the news that the body of the husband's old girlfriend has been found (she died in a mountaineering accident ~50 years ago). This stirs up a lot of old memories, and the wife discovers that the husband has kept something secret from her about the woman, which sort of leads to an unraveling of the marriage.
Charlotte Rampling looks good for 70 (natural beauty plus those vigorous morning walks with the dog), and a lot of emotion comes across her face ... she's a pro actor from England, you know. I love how her reaction to things is how any woman would react, it's honest, which is refreshing. Here's a key bit of dialogue:
Wife: It's like she's been standing
in the corner of the room all this time,
- behind my back.
Husband: - Oh, come on.
Wife: And it's tainted everything.
All our decisions, where we go
on holiday, what books we read,
what dog you want to choose,
what music we want to listen to.
And the big things, too.
Especially the big things.
Husband: She's had nothing to do with any of that.
Find me a married man who can't relate to that conversation! There are no fireworks, but it's a pretty devastating ending. It's definitely a green for Baby Boomers and anyone older ... more of a yellow for Gen-Xers and younger, but I may kick it up to green for everyone if I can't find Ten Best for 2015.
Who is this strange man sitting next to me?
I drove over to Turning Stone (our local casino) to play in a poker tournament today. The wife has banned me from playing the 8:30 PM game since I get home "too late" and she gets worried. Beautiful fall colors as I drove up (and down) 81, which helped soothe the fact that I didn't finish in the money.
Anyway, I keep a record of the hands dealt and some miscellaneous notes, so here they are. I think there were 38 buy-ins for the noon game I played. 10,000 starting chips plus 2,000 more if you registered 45 minutes early, which I did.
Noon start, 15 minute levels
Level 1, No ante, Small blind 25, Big blind 50 ... starting stack = 12,000
Level 2 50/100 12:15
Level 3 75/150 12:30
Level 4 25 ante, 100/200 12:45
Level 5 25 ante?, 150/300 my notes missed this change 13:00
Level 6 50 ante, 200/400 Clock: 13:15
Level 7 75 ante, 300/600 13:30
Break 13:45, 15 minutes, stack 16,325
Level 8 100 ante, 400/800 14:00
Level 8 200 ante, 500/1000 14:15
Level 9 200 ante, 600/1200 14:30
14:39 out ... wasn't paying attention to BB's stack, he was a new player who just sat down, I thought he was much shorter stacked, but it wouldn't have mattered, if I had simply called, he still would have won, and I was critically short-stacked already, so....
You can see that the number of hands dealt per 15 minute level is very low, only six or seven hands dealt before the blinds jump.
The tournament structure only pays out the top four places, which I think is terrible ... I've found that at friendly final tables, people will agree to a more equitable split of the winnings ... in my opinion, anyone who gets to the final table should win his entry fee back, at least.
In Yiddish (and Hungarian and German and Polish). 107 minutes. Broke the rule about never watching anything about the Holocaust, and I'm glad I did because this movie was fantastic. They keep the camera tight on Saul almost all the time, so the background is often fuzzy, and the pace is whirlwind, but you know what's going on ... and you can hear it (the screaming, the shots, the furnaces roaring, etc.) I was just amazed by it all, a solid green rating (go), recommended.
David Edelstein has an interesting take on the movie (he didn't like it).
This is only the sixth movie from 2015 that I loved and can recommend (the first five are: Mad Max: Fury Road; The Revenant; Shaun the Sheep; Tangerine; and The Diary of a Teenage Girl). I only have a couple dozen left to watch from the original list of 80 (!), so I should be able to get a top ten list for 2015 by the end of it.
Kept his humanity, despite the horrors
82 minute running time, which I think is the *shortest* of any of the 80! movies I have on the 2015 list that I'm working through, so that's a good length in this Age of the Overly Long Movie. Lily Tomlin plays a foul-mouthed, straight-talking (i.e., rude) grandma, and there are some very funny bits ... it's a W.D. By movie and though brief, it touches on a lot of taboo topics: abortion, lesbianism, bad "parenting," artificial insemination, money, pot smoking, ageing, death, grieving, etc. It wasn't bad but I did go to 2x fast forward (the highest speed I can use and still maintain the audio) after 20 minutes. I'll give it a yellow (consider) rating.
Needs $630, today.
Discovered via the Spotify algo (how else?). This kid is my kind of smartass.
No changes this week.
