Cold, dry winter air wreaks havoc on my skin. I feel all alligator-like and am constantly searching for a lotion that works well as an after-shower moisturizer that:

a) won’t be totally greasy and gross

b) won’t feel watery and immaterial, and…

c) doesn’t cost a fortune because moisturizing arms, legs and back requires much lotion

Well… Trader Joe’s to the rescue! The moisturizing cream at left - Trader Joe’s A Midsummer Night’s Cream Moisturizing Cream, Extra Dry Formula - meets all these criteria. It comes in a regular version and this extra dry formula. It’s unscented, but it still has a very faint herbal scent which is not at all unpleasant. It’s quite rich and thick, but not greasy or slimy. It absorbs into the skin quite quickly (at least for me) and lasts quite a long time.

I was wearing a thick and itchy cowl-neck wool sweater earlier in the week and it normally irritates the hell out of my neck (while keeping the rest of me warm and toasty) but the irritating effects were greatly lessened by being moisturized beforehand with this stuff. I sometimes use Aveeno, but it isn’t as rich as I would like and I find myself having to reapply a few times before I really feel the effects.

Later today, I’ll be going to a Trader Joe’s location I’ve never been to before and I’m willing to bet they will have larger selection of TJ’s craziness than my smaller local TJ’s. Excitement!

As a point of curiosity, this lotion shares its name with a porno flick (A Midsummer Night’s Cream) but that’s a connection very few people are going to make. And I am one of those weird people because I read too much.

There was an article in Reason magazine several years ago about controversial porn studies courses in universities. The piece mentioned that film, which is an actual retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (safe proof from IMDb!):

One needn’t be a prude or a hidebound academic traditionalist to roll one’s eyes at the earnest assertions of porn studies champions. Amherst English professor Richard Burt, among others, has said that pornography should be treated no differently from any other genre of film or literature.

In a way, this is a reductio ad absurdum of the postmodernist creed that no “text” is truly superior to any other. In a 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times, Burt boldly declares that no study of film adaptations of Shakespeare can be complete without a look at hard-core porno flicks like A Midsummer Night’s Cream.

If porn studies and events like “Revolting Behavior” take intellectual content out of the academy, they also take human content out of human sexuality (and perhaps sexual content as well). “Transgressive” acts and identities are celebrated for their defiance of social norms.

Honestly, I don’t have a problem with it. If such a course was offered back in my college days, I probably would’ve signed up for it. What people fail to realize is that pop culture analysis has become a part of most college course workloads and the work that results from these studies is legitimate and just as labor-intensive as writing a paper on Proust or Nietzsche. One thing my college education taught me was to look at EVERYTHING as a “text” -whether that text is a movie, a television commercial, TV show, book, play, poem, painting, sculpture, photo, song, opera, etc. It can all be taken apart, analyzed, deconstructed and viewed in that way. You can do a close reading of a porn flick just as seriously as you can do a close reading of a paragraph of Hegel.

I took a (straight-up serious) philosophy course my freshman year at NYU that looked at philosophical ideals and tropes in dramatic works–a few Greek tragedies, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, but also the movie Blade Runner and episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We discussed those works in terms of what they say about being human - what makes us human. Deckard from Blade Runner (who at that time had not yet been revealed to be a Replicant by director Ridley Scott) and Data from Star Trek were the subjects of a paper in which we had to answer the question, “According to [Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzche], is [Data, Deckard] human?” based on their statements about humanity, morality and ethics.

Interesting stuff.

One of the benefits of not being wealthy, not being involved in a multitude of investment opportunities and not being a homeowner/married person/parent is that my taxes are so easy to do. Really. I used TurboTax this year and last year because it makes it so redonkulously easy, but I’ve done it the old school way, too. And an even older school way before I knew any better — going to an alcoholic accountant/family friend who used to do my taxes until the fear of an audit made me think better of such things.

I guess I’m a reluctant fan of TurboTax. The end part of the process (just before you file) is annoying because they try to sell you on their professional tax review, audit-proofing, etc. (all at an additional cost) but I have to appreciate that - it’s the cross-sell. The rest of it is pretty painless so I can’t complain overall. However, I do not use them for the state taxes. While they include one free state tax return with the software, they charge an additional $17 or something if you want to e-file the resulting return through TurboTax. Ha ha. There’s the catch.

Most states offer a free e-file option through the official state website - and most state taxes are simple-simple -simple. No itemized deductions, no craziness. Just “How much did you earn?” and “Did you buy a house or spend insane sums of money on medical care?” then “OK, well you should’ve paid this and you paid this. Your return/amount owed is _____. Have a nice day.”

In any event, I’m all e-filed for state and federal and should be seeing my moderate federal return magically appear in my bank account in the next 9-14 business days. My whopping $1 return from the State of New Jersey should appear even sooner.

Guess who’s going to be putting that mad-cash-money towards a new tube of lip balm?!??!

Checking my RSS feeds… eating pizza at my desk… and saw THIS:

At Toy Fair, this company had a full mini Nightmare Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas. My favorite movie blog, /film, took the initiative and posted photos of it. And I love it.

Yes, I might be getting too old for this, but I love it all the same.

Last Sunday night, I finally took myself to see “There Will Be Blood.” No plot synopsis here, just some observations/impressions - and perhaps details you might not want to know. Ah, well. At this point, I’ll just go with it.

First thought: It was far quieter than I expected. Then again, this is from the man who brought us “Magnolia”, which was also a fairly quiet film in a similar way. But it was very quiet. I feel this must have some connection with a certain character’s deafness later (where sound disappears entirely from certain scenes); or perhaps it’s simply a device they’re using to accentuate how vast and empty the world was (and to this man in particular) and the various things he did or was willing to do to fill that emptiness (which never abated since that type of greed can’t be “met” or fulfilled).

Second: Yes, Daniel Day Lewis was good again. For very superficial reasons, this role (Daniel Plainview) reminded me of his performance as Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting in “Gangs of New York.” Both characters possess incredible charisma which they use to manipulate people into doing things they might not do otherwise. That said, there were still moments I wanted to like him and see some good within him, despite his being a manipulative, greedy oil man. The limp he affects elicits part of that response, I think (oooh - flawed! Human!) I got over it by the end of the movie, though.

Third: I understand that for the time period and subject of the film (late 1800s/early 1900s - the wilds of California and the American west, with oil prospecting as the centerpiece), the relative lack of female characters is fitting. It was just a bit strange for the biggest female parts to be little girls who either a) run and fetch things for the men or b) look cute when someone needs a prop to appear sensitive and family-oriented.

Fourth: The depiction of religion and the role of religion in the various characters’ lives was fascinating. You have “dueling charismas” when it comes to relationship between the young minister and the greedy oil man. They’re like two sides of the same coin, and I think that’s pretty heavily suggested throughout. It’s not exactly a doppelganger set-up, but I think seeing them as more alike than different is key. Things like the sarcastic use of “brother”, the fact that the minister is/was a twin, their similarities in terms of showmanship and the ability to manipulate people to their way of thinking… and the way they play each other, competitively and maliciously—these all play into it.

Fourth (ancillary): The names. A minister named ELI SUNDAY? A greedy liar named DANIEL PLAINVIEW? And throw in the fact that he tosses around, “I believe in plain-speaking” to everyone he meets… and, here’s a curiosity. The name Eli means “ascension” or “my God” in Hebrew; the name Daniel is also derived from Hebrew and means “God is my judge.” Interesting.

Fifth: I need to see it again to make any larger-scale big-picture comments. Because it was so quiet, you’d think I would’ve focused quite clearly on what was said and what was shown; but it’s a long movie. And I wasn’t feeling all that hot on Sunday, anyway.

Sixth: Now I’ve seen the new movie catch-phrase du jour in action. There’s a site. Probably several.

But I will call your attention to this one, Idrinkyourmilkshake.com, since it’s billing itself as a discussion board about the movie or a place to play the line over and over and over. Movie folks on the blogosphere are saying that line is either the new “show me the money!”, “say hello to my little friend” or “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. (slurping noise).”

Hrm. Well, I’ll consider the last two, but there’s no way you can compare a line from “Jerry Maguire” to the lines from those other films.

This comic sometimes sends me into fits of laughter:

And then other times, like today, it surprises and touches me with its poignancy and ability to position a stick figure right in my heart:

The title of the image (not visible unless you mouse over it) reads: “Oh, look, the ‘make everything better’ button was here behind the bookshelf all along.”

I’ve just spent an hour or so researching new cell phones (because what else would I want to do on a Saturday morning after I’ve already gone running at 9 a.m.* ?) and I think I’ve decided what my new phone will be when I’m due for a new one in May—providing that it is actually released around that time. I mean, I could wait until July or August, but any longer than that and the small portion of my brain that is a rabid tech-toy junkie will be getting way tired of my current phone (despite the adolescent-like presence of Tetris, Mah-jongg and Bejeweled game apps).

My carrier is Verizon (since 1996, actually) so there’s no dancing with the iPhone for me (which is fine. I’m not that fashionable, anyway). As you might assume from my 12-year relationship with Verizon, I’m quite happy with their service. I can honestly say that the only places I’ve had a drop-off in reception have been:

• The wilds of New Hampshire - parts where you can’t even pick up a radio station clearly
• The former bomb-shelters now used as classrooms in NYU’s Stern Building (hell, they might not even be used as classrooms anymore. This was my experience when I had classes in that building in 1999 and 2000)
• In a tunnel during my train ride home. Sometimes the signal doesn’t drop off, but it has one more than one occasion, so it makes this list.
• A small stretch of road in a nearby town where reception inexplicably drops off for everyone I know on every carrier in this area. It’s just “that dead zone.”

But I know that for lots of people (granted, they are generally people who have careers involving a great deal more responsibility, international travel and larger salaries than mine), the whole CDMA thing is crippling (”I can’t use my phone in London??? No SIM card?? Inconceivable!“) so I understand the issues with Verizon there. However, the only time I travel internationally is for leisure, and if I ever decide that I need a mobile phone while abroad, I can just pick up a cheap pre-paid deal while overseas. That makes a bit more sense in my case.

Anyway - the phone. I looked at a few of the BlackBerry models Verizon offers and while they are nice, I don’t think I need to make that leap yet. They’ve got their BlackBerry World Phone that works on both GSM and CDMA networks, but that’s also perhaps a bit more smartphone-ish than what I need (it would be kinda like giving me a Bugatti Veyron to drive to the train station and back - not that I’d refuse that).

I want: decent web-browsing and email capabilities. Bluetooth is nice, too. QWERTY keyboard definitely. And a bit of style.

PhoneArena.com tipped me off to the upcoming phone offering from Verizon - the Samsung SCH-U940. It’s the CDMA version of the Samsung SGH-F700, which is available in Europe and Asia. The specs on that one are pretty OK for me (and while there will be some changes coming over to the States/CDMA, it should be fine).

I found some photos of the SGH-F700 “in action” (including the one at left) which confirm that it’s got the style factor. It is a slide phone, so there’s a QWERTY keyboard underneath that screen if you slide it open and rotate it 90°.

So this might be it. I’ve had a Samsung cell phone before and I was happy with it in terms of the feel of it (had a good heft, felt solid, etc. - I trust that, whether or not it’s a good part of the decision-making process). I don’t think it’s going to be prohibitively expensive; it won’t be more than a BlackBerry in any case.

*I realize that’s not early for most people. That’s early-ish for me. I’ve just been waking up unnaturally early the last week or so - before the alarm even goes off. It’s distressing.

I’ve been talked down off the MacBook Air “ledge” by my well-informed and technologically über-savvy brother.

His reasons and logic were compelling; the only thing I could do when he was done with his solid list was issue forth a feeble, “But it’s so slick-looking…”

For around or less than half the price, I could buy a comparably-sized, equally lightweight notebook computer that would have a built-in optical drive (CD/DVD), memory expansion, a bigger/better hard drive, more than one USB port, and a replaceable battery (rather, a user replaceable battery).

MacBook Air, while slick, has these shortcomings. CrunchGear has a good (and entertaining) summary entitled, “MacBook AirHead: why Apple’s new laptop is basically useless“:

And the inputs. One USB, one Franken-DVI. Hope you like plugging and unplugging things! It says it’s built for the wireless world - yeah, okay, but that world is make-believe right now. Sure, you could bring a hub along, but this goes along with the earlier complaint: what’s the point of a mega-portable laptop if you have to bring along a whole support team? It’s like a ditzy model-actress’s entourage: you just want to take the girl out, but she has to have her make-up guy, her photographer, her PA, and she’s totally incapable of doing anything on her own.

See? Entertaining. And informative.

Maybe I’ll just focus my energy on cell phone/smartphone/Blackberry research. That decision will have to be made in May, and there might be new stuff on the market by then, but I’d best get myself up to speed ‘afore then.

LibraryThing has this funky “view all your covers” feature.

So I fired that up and then did a little screengrab of the complete page. The books that don’t have covers (out of print or foreign books) don’t get included, but still - you can see the covers of something close to 900 books in one image. It’s pretty sweet.

Check out an image of the covers.

(You’ll have to click to enlarge to full screen size, btw.)

Hot on the heels of my assertion that I would like a MacBook Air — eventually — here are some incredibly compelling reasons to rethink this decision and get it much, much sooner. You never know when a situation will arise, and I, for one, like to be prepared.

[joyoftech via newlaunches via gizmodo]

I understand the cracker concern.

I’m glad I didn’t purchase a laptop this year. Because now I will have an excuse to seriously consider the MacBook Air.

Of course, it’s been all over the interwebs. I’ve just been reading and looking and absorbing. I do like the Mac (though I use a PC mainly, I have ready access to a Mac and the fun that comes with it) and since a notebook computer might be a good thing to have (it’s come up a few times) this would allow me to have both. And at something like 3 pounds and less than an inch thick? Oh, yes, please.

Here’s a nice little Wired piece on it (about its unveiling at the Macworld expo).

Clearly, I won’t be able to buy it when it comes out - and that’s just fine. I’m sure they’ll be hard-to-near-impossible to get at first, and it’s usually a good idea to wait a while before buying a brand new Apple product (prices drop, bugs are worked out, etc.)

But when I do finally acquire it (maybe next summer or fall) I already know what kind of case I’ll be getting for it. I’m sure you’ve heard the gimmick from Steve Jobs’ presentation: he pulled an Air out of a manila envelope to show off the slimness and size of it. Some hipster designers have already taken that and run with it. They call it AirMail.

“handmade out of durable upholstery-grade vinyl, and lined with fuzzy, soft fleece, a manila envelope for your MacBook Air.”