The Lex Files

A review of my review of <I>Harry Potter 2: The Soich For More Money</I>

I was going to post

A review of my review of my review of Harry Potter 2: Harry With A Vengence

but I decided you all wouldn’t find it as funny as I did.

Today, Lex files his way to Tucson for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, Lex has a birthday. The day after, Hannukah starts. The next day, Lex has another engagment party (his third) (same fiancee each time, though).

Tis the season of giving gifts. To me.

A review of my review of <I>Harry Potter 2: The Soich For More Money</I>

Not since my review of Debbie Cleans Up (yet to be written) has this reviewer seen such a blatant overuse of self-referentialism of the sort that refers back to the reviewer writing the review, such as this reviewer is in the composition of this review. Friedman’s so-called “review” of Harry Potter is more a revue of lousy language constructions, awkward syntax, repeated redundancies, and wholly inappropriate segues.

Trees are often pretty.

Additionally, Friedman’s review of Harry Potter 2: Harry Gets Pottered With Mucho Muggles Hogswarting All Over the Place while Wizards Play Quiddage With MugWumps Who Freevissle the Smenthiduggins contained paragraphs consisting of just one sentence, which this reviewer hates and avoids at all costs. It raised more questions than it answered, by a count of 5,672 to nine.

November 24th, 2002

I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night.

How does this happen? I didn’t want to see Harry Potter. I haven’t read any of the books. I haven’t seen the first one.

My interest in fantasy literature is similar to my interest in Zen, zuchinni, and the inventer of the zipper.

With that in mind, that that that that that that that.

With that in mind, here’s my review of the new Harry Potter thing.

Not since “Dude, Where’s My Car?” has this reviewer seen a cinematic tour de force of the caliber of Harry Potter. The theater this reviewer reviewed within was filled with countless Potter-Heads who were muggled down to the very bottom of their Hogwarts, not that this reviewer had any idea what the hell that meant, and the movie certainly made no attempt to explain it to uninitiated reviewers such as this reviewer’s self.

As Harry Potter unfolds, we find the title character (”Harry Potter”) getting into one magical scrape after another. We wonder, especially if we are this reviewer, will Harry find a way out of this magical scrape? Will this magical scrape maybe be — gulp — the end of Harry? Would Dave Barry think that the “Magical Scrapes” would be a good name for a rock band?

Yes, no, and probably, but you’d have to ask him to be sure.

Luckily for Harry, he’s the hero, so no matter what happens, he can always fly on his broomstick faster, cast spells quicker, and otherwise wizard around all over the place far better than everyone else, so he wins. And you don’t care, presuming you are this reviewer, which this reviewer is. Am. Or something.

November 22nd, 2002

Mentos: The Freshmaker is truly neither Fresh nor your Maker.

Discuss.

According to CNN:

WHERE IN THE WORLD
Among 18- to 24-year-old Americans given maps:

87 percent cannot find Iraq

83 percent cannot find Afghanistan

76 percent cannot find Saudi Arabia

70 percent cannot find New Jersey

49 percent cannot find New York

11 percent cannot find the United States

Okay, maybe I couldn’t find Afghanistan on an unlabeled world map — they don’t teach that in junior high. But the UNITED STATES? AMERICAN ADULTS WHO ARE ALLOWED TO VOTE CAN’T FIND THE USA ON A MAP?

Fortunately, they probably can’t figure out how to use the voting machines anyway.

November 19th, 2002

Update: I no longer think I’m going to die. I do think I’m getting stupider, since I just typed “I know longer think I’m going to die,” and for several moments couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the heck looked wrong there.

A call to my dad, who is currently back in Pennsylvania, yielded two responses to the hiccup in my standard daily procedures. He offered one method wherein I was supposed to hold a few fingers over the lid of a glass and drink the water through my fingers or something, in a way where I get lots of air while I drank. To be honest (Hi, Dad!), I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do, but after years of drinking various liqiuds (I’ve done it virtually all my life), I knew I could handle rigging my drinking experience (”drigging”) so that I would swallow air along with the H2O.

Dad also checked in with the Emergency Room at the Reading Hospital, where I was born. Seriously. They said, “That kid? We HATE that kid!” No, they suggested a prescription tranquilizer. I’d like to say it was a Horse Tranquilizer, because that’s funnier, but it wasn’t. As far as you know.

Anywho, I did the soak-your-fingers-and-your-shirt-and-drink-lots-of-water-with-air method.

And at 8:30 PM PST, the hiccups stopped.

Thanks, Dad!

Oh yeah: At 11:30 PM PST, the hiccups started again.

I did another air-water glass and they stopped. I then went to sleep as fast I could. So far this morning, all is quiet on my [humorous hiccup-related bodily organ here] front.

November 18th, 2002

have had the hiccups since 10 o’clock this morning.

I think I’m gonna die.

It started harmlessly enough. Hiccups are funny. I’ve laughed about this already today.

But this is unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.

I’ve held my breath — for two solid minutes or so. I’ve had tall glasses of water. And chocolate milk. And Coke.

I just had two teaspoonfuls of sugar. And almost hiccupped the second spoonful up.

Lord help me.

I am in pain from this already.

Stop laughing at me, you jerks.

November 14th, 2002

I knew this kid who worked for a web hosting company. One day, in the middle of the day, one of the network administrators — for reasons that defy most human methods of logic — unplugged a large portion of the hosting company’s computer farm.

This turned off many, many customers’ sites in a matter of seconds. About 28,000 of the 30,000 customers the web hosting company had.

This was bad.

So, of course, the phones over at Tech Support began ringing off the hook. And this small web hosting company had no one who knew how to record a temporary “voicemail greeting” saying, “Hello, this Joe Schmoe Web Hosting. Our servers are undergoing unscheduled maintenance for the next 15 minutes. Everything should be back up shortly.”

One of the problems the company’s staff found was that they weren’t called “Joe Schmoe Web Hosting.” They were called “Joe Schmoe Website Hosting.”

The other problem was that, just as with the office printer, none of the tech support guys or system admins could get the phones to work right.

So… eventually, this one guy with a good sense of humor over at Schmoe grabbed an incoming call and said, “Thank you for calling Joe Schmoe Website Hosting. Our system is undergoing unscheduled maintenance at this time. Our servers will go back online within the next 15 minutes. If you still require tech support, please press ‘1′ now.”

And the caller hung up.

Haha.

Commentary Vous?

I love DVD commentary tracks. But sometimes, the people you expect to do the best job with them really really stink.

The Farrelly brothers just talk about all their friends and family members who they cast as extras. Mel Brooks just laughs at his jokes, and comments, “Oooh, that’s a bad joke.”

The movie American Pie 2, however, has four commentary tracks, from different permutations of cast members, writers, and directors. Mediocre move… But that’s a good ol’ set of commentaries.

November 12th, 2002

David Letterman is simply funnier than Jay Leno. My Dad’s a Leno fan, so I feel bad saying it, but it’s true. And Letterman’s show is waaaaaay funnier. Conan’s better than both.

And Jon Stewart. Ohhhhhhhhhhh Jon Stewart.

(Note: The previous paragraph was not meant to have any homoerotic overtones. Or undertones.)

(Not that there would be anything wrong with that, were that what I was intending to imply.)

(Which it wasn’t.)

(Again, not that such implication would have a negative connotation.)