Thursday, May 31, 2012

Stealing The Show: Black Widow


  • Hello, tailor analysis of Black Widow and Hawkeye's costumes: "But the reality is that there's no point during The Avengers when her looks are even commented on, and nor does she get any tiresome "feminine wiles" scenes. Most complaints or creepy sexist commentary on Black Widow's costume/body/character say far more about the commenter than about Johansson's performance itself."
  • The Superhero Men Don't See: Evidence: "Overall, 24 of the 40 reviews mention Natasha/BW/SJ only in passing, in a single sentence; 3 others do not mention her at all. But look at Point 1 of the objective facts: Johansson probably has the second largest part in the movie, including at least *8* two-person scenes (if you include the Russians). Not mentioning her or not giving the impression that she's a major character maybe should qualify *all* those reviewers for the "420" designation, or at least for a couple of tokes."
  • Scarlett Johannson in a Gorilla Suit: The Superhero Mundanes Don't See: "And in particular, it's usually a safe bet that if there's only one woman with a major role in a male-focused action movie, she'll be the stock sex symbol. So I think the Top Critics saw Scarlett Johansson as Natasha, tagged her as "the girl who's pretty but doesn't do much, you know, like Megan Fox", and then felt free to ignore her as they tried to keep track of what was going on (the basketball game, as it were) in a maximally distracting environment. When it came time to write their review, they looked at the list of actors, said, "hmm, what did Scarlett Johansson do?" and all that came back was the tag -- they never realized her character was the gorilla."
  • The Avengers Brings Superhero Movies to Another Level: "Black Widow, given a personal stake in the fight when Loki brainwashes Hawkeye, tells the villain who wants to know if she’s in love with him, “Love is for children. I owe a debt,” and leaves it at that. Her refusal to clarify leaves room for Loki to speculate, and ultimately to reveal more than he intended. All sorts of skill sets matter in a conflict this big and complex. And without making her a victim or a lesser member of the team, Black Widow’s reactions are a regular reminder that superheroics and space invaders have real impact beyond the financial support of the Cinematic Demolition Industrial Complex."
  • Black Widow Spins Web Around the Avengers: "To which I can only say—exactly! And: isn’t this remarkable? Two parallel realities! Men who see nobody at all and women who see the next Faith (without the crazy, I mean). Don’t tell Disney, or they’ll be marketing the film as 4-D."
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Links + Comments


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Monday, May 28, 2012

How To Get Around Media Paywalls

Recently, newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have instituted paywalls. These paywalls allow you to access their news sites a certain number of times per month, after which you are prompted to pay for subscriptions to access their online materials. Supposedly there are other benefits if you subscribe, but if you're like me and you're unlikely to subscribe either offline or on, there's a quick solution if you want to read more than your allotted amount per month:

Just use your browser's private browsing mode. 


It's as simple as that.
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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Everything You Never Needed To Know About Steve Jobs

This is a compilation of links about Steve Jobs. This post will be updated whenever I have new information about Steve Jobs that is relevant or interesting.
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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Adventures In Greening The Mail

I finally decided to work on getting rid of junk mail. The piles upon piles of paper to be weeded through and shredded got to be too much. I started last year.
  • Unsubscribed from former favorite catalogs: Ann Taylor Loft, Uncommon Goods, etc.
  • Unsubscribed from credit card offers/checks on Chase and Discover. Went to settings via Chase website; used the live chat function on Discover to request that checks stop being sent to me.
  • Removed self from Pennysavers mailing list. You can use this link to unsubscribe from their mailing list. At the time I did this, the following applied: "You must affirm that you are the head of the household and at least 18 years of age. It takes at least 4-6 weeks to cancel and the suppression from their mailing list is only valid for 1 year high household mobility rate of people changing residences in California and Florida." So far, we haven't been getting the Pennysavers ads. 
  • Removed self from Valpak coupons. Use this link to unsubscribe. 
  • Called and/or emailed to have people removed from mailing lists who no longer live at our address. Includes: Abercrombie & Kent, CAFAM, USC Alumni Association, etc. 
  • Used PaperKarma app to unsubscribe from unwanted mailings. It's very easy - snap a picture of the mailing address you want to be unsubscribed from, and they'll send a request on your behalf. Currently the app is free and is available on iOS, Android, and Windows phones. You can only unsubscribe from mail that is directly addressed to you, so I also installed the app on my husband's phone, and I also unsubscribe him from stuff when I see it addressed to him. 
I found it hilarious that Pennysavers links to this "fact sheet" that says that efforts to reduce junk mail are misguided and will cost people jobs. One, if I never use the information that's sent to me, it's a waste of my time to have to sift through it. Two, if it costs people jobs, then maybe the industry should work out a different solution than annoying people with trash. 

I am now working on getting my husband to go paperless with his statements. It's...slow-going, to say the least. 
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