Unsolicited Suggestions for Nicholas Sparks

Missed Connection: A recent divorcee strikes up a steamy romance with a human rights lawyer turned Zen Buddhist practitioner when he sells his grandfather’s mahogany armoire over Craigslist in an attempt to rid himself of earthly constraints. They must struggle to balance their love against the demands of her newly-opened bakery and his duties running a Northern California Zen monastery. Soul-searching trips to wine country abound until he is killed in a helicopter accident.

Mystery Fax: A harried travel agent and single mother starts receiving strange faxes at her Cape Cod office. At first she believes they are solicitations or a wrong number, but then discovers they are desperate dispatches from a brave handsome journalist held captive by FARC guerillas in Colombia. They continue to exchange messages through this rapidly-disappearing form of communication; non-platonic feelings erupt. Finally, with the help of her ex-husband David Morse, she goes to South America to attempt to rescue him. He is tragically killed after eating a poisonous jungle plant but not before giving our heroine the courage she needs to open the tearoom of which she had always dreamed.

Texts from Ocracoke: A 40-something CPA and recent divorcee is taking some time to herself on the Outer Banks when she meets and falls in love with a ruggedly handsome pediatrician who had his larynx torn out by a leopard while working in Namibia for Doctors Without Borders. Since he has lost the ability to speak, they communicate with each other largely through text messages. She must overcome her long-standing technophobia (“I never use anything fancier than an adding machine,” she admits at one point) so that love can blossom in this coastal paradise, and so they can open a rare book shop together, thus fulfilling her lifelong dream. Tragically, though, he is killed when a really heavy book falls on him.

Coo-Coo for You: A young American doughboy fighting in World War I meets a beautiful French village girl while AWOL from this horrible, pointless fighting that is tearing this world apart. He is eventually found and brought back to the line, but continues to send poetry and communiqués to her via passenger pigeon. Cruel fate conspires to make it impossible for them to reunite after the war, but they meet again in Paris when they are both 120 years old and he happens to walk into her granddaughter’s créperie. They live happily ever after but passenger pigeons go extinct because of their overuse in wars.

Happy Birthday: Das Vidanya

Das Vidanya marked its one-year anniversary a few days ago. What has changed since April 3, 2009? Let's run this down in bullet form, but with dashes:

-Posts are generally shorter: It's hard for me to believe that I was able to write posts longer than four paragraphs towards the beginning of this blog's history. These days, Das Vidanya topics rarely gestate in my mind long enough to be crafted into posts, and those that do are ineffable and fleeting at best. Erring towards short and sweet has kind of become a thing with Das Vidanya.

-More erratic posting: Boy, I sure was a Talkative Terrence last spring, eh? Yeah, not no more. I'll refer you to the explanation above: Topics - ineffable! fleeting!

-More embedded videos: Everyone knows that it is important to utilize visual aids when dissecting important topics e.g. L'il Wayne. More videos! Plus you can call your friends around to watch them and when they ask "Dude what the hell blog is this" you can say "I dunno". Increased video embeds should in no way lead you to infer laziness on my part.

-I moved back to Northern Virginia: I don't want to talk about it.

Thanks again for your loyal readership and let's make this next year the specialest one of all!

Fancy

"You know how L'il Wayne came up with saying 'no homo' when you do [gay] stuff like that?" said the man at the gym a couple days ago. "Well, my whole life is no homo."

All I Do Is Kill Nazis Of You The Whole Night Thru

Oscar weekend is here, and there are those who believe that Inglorious Basterds is likely to become your 2009 Best Picture recipient. I don't think that this will happen, but I fervently hope that it does.

Basterds was my second-favorite movie of 2009 (after this masterpiece). Here's my third grade book report version of why:

I thought Inglorious Basterds was a good movie because it was really fun and awesome. The main themes were revenge and Nazis. The main Nazi was really scary and the actor playing him was really good. The plot did not make a lot of sense sometimes but that was okay because it was very hilarious and I had a great time at the movies.

Listen, everyone: that is the only appropriate reaction to have after seeing Inglorious Basterds. It defies any trenchant analysis and is pure entertainment. It is an utter mess of a movie, which is quite common, but also a completely and purely entertaining mess in which a famous director follows his various unique obsessions down their respective rabbit holes for no real reason at all and is hugely successful, which is not as common.

To be honest, though, the movie could have been an absolute pile and I would still be rooting for it to win the Oscar, if only to demonstrate that the movie industry is so narrow-minded and bankrupt of all original thought that they will literally hand out an award to anything with a Nazi in it. Hell, they gave one out last year to Kate Winslet for jackbooting up after she and Ricky Gervais mocked the very concept mercilessly.

So at this year's Oscar party, tell your friends to root for the coronation of ludicrousness, and remind them that The Hurt Locker didn't have even one single Mexican standoff.

Secret Grilled Cheese Party

Like it or not, Being a Man in the 21st Century means living in paralyzing fear of being emasculated in any and every situation. It should be accepted as fact that if you are a heterosexual male between the ages of oh let's say 18 and 35, day-to-day life is a constant process of shoring up your defenses against threats to your power, virility, and unassailable dudeitude.

That being said, the ad snippet that I'm about to foist upon you made me drop my Axe can mid-spray and pause 300 right at the good part:



Is nothing sacred? Now I'm halfway between a mincing fairy and a cringe-inducing manchild if I order a grilled cheese sandwich?

The people at Hardee's (Carl's Jr. on the west coast) have obviously never been in any sort of dire financial situation. They can't even fathom the enormous bite that six 24 DVD sets and a full tank of gas for an all-black Hemi V8 Dodge Charger can take out of a Man's budget. Thus, they clearly do not realize that when dining out, a delicious and cost-effective grilled cheese is often the best option.

That being said, I can't fault Hardee's for their incredibly simple solution to the problem of having your identity called into question by a sandwich. To wit: PUT A BURGER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT

Raquetball, Tennis, Pool, Whatever

Forgot to mention Wooooo threw my wigged out letter up onto their blog a few weeks back. There's a link in there you can follow back to this blog, which you can use as a jumping-off point to go back to the Wooooo post, then back to this blog again.

Get well soon Guru

Cakes In The Home

Crash Course In Science!