Why did they bother to film Daniel Deronda?

For those of you who don't know, Daniel Deronda is an incredibly long and unbelievably boring book by George Eliot which is sort of about a woman named Gwendolyn Harleth and how she's incredibly vain but eventually gets her comeuppance and reforms, and sort of about a chap named Daniel Deronda who rescues a young Jewish woman from drowning and then eventually finds out that he, too, is Jewish. In the nineteenth century.

Now, I realize that one needs to have inexhaustible supplies of costume dramas so that Romola Garai can be in films. This is the reason they made Atonement, as far as I can gather. Hugh Dancy, also, requires these rôles, and you can only make Ella Enchanted once (thank goodness).

But that book is terrible. There's no plot to speak of, unless there are two, which are only tangentially related and sprawl all over the place. Also, everyone is weak, or hateful, or both. And boring.

The proper place for such novels is on the shelf in the library, slowly (or rapidly) gathering dust. They should not be taken to film studios. No money should be spent on them. I have a list as long as my arm of novels that would make great film adaptations. And Romola Garai could even be in some of them! Come on, people, ask me first.

Why are most pumpkin beers totally vile?

I love almost all pumpkin things: pie, roll, cake, etc. Pie is obviously the best, but any number of pumpkin things conjure up crisp leaves, warm burgundies (the color, not the wine), and gorgeous autumn afternoons watching football.

Beer is also good.

So why are pumpkin beers usually terrible? Flavored beers in general are a risky proposition, I grant you, but one feels that pumpkin is sufficiently within the range of cervisian flavors that it would work rather well. Lots of spiced ales are delicious.

Pumpkin beer, by my calculations, should taste like pie in beer form. But most of them taste like death in beer form, with a side of nutmeg. Rancid nutmeg. And most of them come from little boutique breweries. If you're going to make a beer, Dogfish Head, make one that doesn't taste like sick, okay?

And stop getting my hopes up.

Why does Gabriel have to die?

Full disclosure: I adore The Patriot. I could watch it a hundred times and still love it with a totally irrational love.

That said, why does Gabriel have to die? Thomas has already died. In front of his father and siblings. That's pretty heart-wrenching. That's totally enough to make Mel Gibson go bat-poo crazy and slice and dice some redcoats.

I'm just saying that I am already sufficiently emotionally manipulated by the film, and don't need to see Gabriel die for the simple and sole reason that he is an idiot. Thomas, at least, was trying to die for something. Gabriel is just dumb.

I know, I know, lost cause, blah blah, final battle, blah blah, carefully mended flag, blah blah blah. He doesn't have to die!

Why is there a third football game on Thanksgiving?

As a friend of mine said, unless either the Cowboys or the Lions are playing two games on Thanksgiving, there should not be three games.

Last I checked, that was not the case. I don't care that the Eagles are playing. I guess it will make next Sunday more pleasant in that I don't have to watch them make giant sucking sounds, but, unless they're playing the Cowboys or the Lions, they should not be playing on Thanksgiving.

That the game is on the NFL Network is merely icing on the America- and freedom-hating cake. But the NFL Network is another rant for another time.

There are two games on Thanksgiving. Everyone watches them. The Lions play at home (and lose embarrassingly), and the Cowboys play at home. The Cowboys game ends in either gloating or crying in the corner, but mostly in pie.

Is it really that hard not to screw this up?

Why are there restaurants without menus?

It's just pointlessly pretentious. If you serve more than one dish, you should have a menu. There are burger joints where you just say "cheese, rare," and they're surly and chuck the burger at your head. Fair enough. All you can get there is a burger.

Pubs, however, where there are multiple imported beers on draught and they serve duck, should have menus. Putting it up on a chalkboard is unacceptable unless the chalkboard is visible from every vantage point in your restaurant. If I have to walk downstairs and around the corner to see what you're serving, you have failed.

Menus are cheap. Just have sheets of paper tacked to the wall. Laminate them, if you're feeling posh.

Don't be cross with me if I have missed the menu chalkboard. In the other room.

Why do people use the walkie-talkie function when not in walkie-talkie situations?

Apparently contractors need those press-to-talk thingummies for their sites, and it makes more sense to use them. Sure, fine, whatever.

You know where it doesn't make sense to use them? On a train. Where there are a hundred other people who don't want to hear even one side of your conversation. They certainly don't want to hear both.

And that awful beeping noise. I think it's specifically calibrated to tweak the one synapse in your brain that makes you into a homicidal lunatic. Turn it off, people. Use the phone function. Stop being that guy.

I'm starting to think that everyone in the world, except me, was raised by squirrels or something. Rude squirrels.

Why does denim have such a high specific heat?

This is probably not a problem for people who do not live in houses that are freezing in the winter. But it is a problem for me.

Jeans, when you put them on, can be very very cold. And then they stay cold. What is the deal? I know of no other fabric that rejects heat for as long as denim (shut up, I do know how thermodynamics works; I am merely speaking of appearances).

Clothes are supposed to make you warmer. Way to go, Levi Strauss & Co.

Why did they have to make Sideways?

First, I'm sick of films in which everyone is a useless waste of space, or you're supposed to like a character even though he has a fling on a trip he takes the week before his wedding and think it is cute and amusing that the flingee beats him up with her handbag. These films nauseate me. It's true that some people are useless craven wastes of space, but I know enough in real life that it is guaranteed not to make me want to watch a film about them.

But the worse part is that people, having seen Sideways, think they know things about wine. Which they don't. I don't really either, but what I do know is gleaned from empirical evidence. Or how nice the label is and whether it costs more than ten dollars but not whether it has a screw top because they make proper wine with screw tops now.

And I don't like Merlot. But this has nothing to do with Sideways and I resent how everyone quotes that scene or nods knowingly when I say I'd prefer a Cab. I am not a sheep and I hate artsy whiny films. I just drink enough wine to know what I like. Sod off, Paul Giamatti.

Why do women think leggings are trousers?

Because they are not. If you are wearing leggings and you are not at the gym, you are not dressed. Also, an oversized sweater and a pair of Uggs do not make leggings into trousers.

Almost no one looks good in leggings. But this is immaterial, because even if you look fantastic in leggings, they are still not clothes.

Seriously? Why is this so hard?

Why is poker on television?

More importantly, why is it on ESPN? Poker is not a sport. There is no possible way you could ever argue that poker is a sport, even the way James Bond plays it, which involves defibrillating oneself.

What possible interest could there be in watching people play poker? Even with the fate of a country and a really excellent dinner suit on the table, I just don't care at all. It's completely asinine to have on ESPN.

Especially when I can't watch cricket or soccer. They may be obscure and unpopular, but they're sports. Seriously. How can you be famous for playing cards?

Why do people talk on their cell phones in libraries?

In libraries, people! I am not kidding even a little bit!

And I don't mean this girl forgot to turn the sound off on her phone so she picked it up and hissed, "Hey, can I call you back? I'm in a library." Nope, not so much. This conversation lasted for fifteen minutes. I could give you a résumé of topics. None of which were urgent.

And the kicker? At the end, she said, "Can I call you back in like an hour and half, girl?" Well, I say "at the end." I mean "this is what she said and then talked for a couple more minutes." But she's calling the person later! None of this was necessary!

In a library! Were you raised by ferrets?!

Why is John Cusack still making the same damn movie?

I like Say Anything. I like Better Off Dead. I like High Fidelity. I find his part in Sixteen Candles small but amusing.

The problem with all these movies is that in them all he is a stunted man-child with no actual human function. In the first two, he's in high school, and it was the eighties, so no big deal. High Fidelity is by Nick Hornby, so, again, no big deal. At least he has a job, right? He was starting to push it, though, in a big way.

And Grosse Pointe Blank was the same as well, may I remind you, only with more violence and a star turn of lunacy by his sister. Still, a good movie. He was still fairly young and cute and maybe you could cut him some slack on being emotionally crippled.

But Must Love Dogs? Really? He is not even close to young or cute enough to pull that one off. When men are pathetic in their forties, they're pathetic forever. They certainly don't snag Diane Lane.

Most of his movies are good, and I like them. But Audrey Tautou has to give up gamine, and John Cusack has to give up useless waste of space. Nick Hornby is actually a little sad when you think about it. Or a lot sad.

Why are Latin orations often given so poorly?

I'm not referring to their composition. My Latin prose composition skills are exceeded in crapulence only by my Latin verse composition skills, so glass houses. Although I imagine if I were giving the Latin oration somewhere I would whip up something better than the frankly embarrassing "Casus Troiae" I gave my students to translate this summer.

First, a pronunciation convention must be chosen. I have a preference for the classical, Germanic style, but I will accept the Italianate. But you have to choose one. You may not switch back and forth.

Second, you should know where to pause. You wrote it. You know Latin. There are cadences that work and cadences that don't. Perhaps more importantly, there are the periods, commas, and em-dashes that you put there.

Third, the speech must be rehearsed. You'd think that a salutatorian (as it usually is) would be sensitive to this requirement, but apparently not. The occasion of the oration is usually a big deal. You should speak with conviction and fluency.

I've only seen two, but they were both lousy (and really should not have been), so I'm going to go ahead and extrapolate that they often or generally are pretty ghastly. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I still maintain the right to bitterness that, while the Latin oration at my commencement was far better than the execrable valedictory address, it was still dull and ill-delivered.

Why are truck ads so profoundly bizarre?

I figure, if I need a truck, that I need it mostly to put stuff in it and then take that stuff somewhere. I accept that you may need to haul more tonnage, or whatever. These seem legitimate concerns.

However. I do not anticipate driving across a canyon on a pair of steel girders with giant fans blowing at me. I do not anticipate driving out of a garage which is in the process of exploding. I do not anticipate encountering I-beams swinging at me from great steel K'nex towers. Oh, or needing to stop on a dime when the road ends inexplicably fifteen feet after the cliff edge, which I have failed to notice.

Because those situations are insane.

I submit that in these situations I would not feel good, without any reference to the make or model of truck I was driving. I don't know that being in a truck would make me feel any better than being in a Mini (except I guess for axle width issues on the girders).

Does this sort of advertisement actually strike anyone as more macho, or is everyone else staring at the television going "huh whuh?" just as I am? What the heck, people?

Why did I have to have my wisdom teeth out?

It hurts. Ow.

Why do manufacturers still produce gross porridge?

I had some organic porridge or oatmeal recently. It tasted like glue, or rather as I would imagine glue tastes. It was also strikingly glue-like in texture.

That is not food, people. It is not the thirteenth century. We've come on a bit since then. We have those little packets of oatmeal with the freeze-dried apples already in them. That is genius.

So it's not ecologically conscious. I don't care. If you find me some ecologically conscious oatmeal that doesn't taste like dying, then we can have a talk. Until then, you can pry my Quaker oatmeal packets from my cold, dead fingers.

Why do soloists dress like morons?

So you're playing a concerto with a major metropolitan orchestra. It is a proud moment in your career--whether it's your first or your seventeenth. This is what you do. So you want to look distinctive and exciting.

Here's a hint: wear evening dress anyway.

For women it's a bit more involved than that. Avoid strapless. You don't want to constrict your arm movement. This I understand. However. No one wants to look at your armpits, so, please, have a heart. They make fabrics now that are not constricting. There is no need for you to disgust the people sitting on the floor.

For gentlemen, this is so crashingly obvious I do not understand how there can be a problem. And yet, I saw Joshua Bell dressed as some kind of peasant while he played the Barber violin concerto. A loose blue shirt and (much too tight) black trousers. How do you expect to be taken seriously wearing that? How?

Evening dress may be dull, but it's reliable. If it fits you, you will look fantastic. More importantly, you will not look like a buffoon.

Why doesn't the Jag XF look, well, like a Jag?

Here's a photo, in case you don't stalk the Jaguar website.

There are two things I associate with Jaguar sedans. One is the headlights. The other is the distinctive divided grille. This car has neither. It also comes in multiple colors, but whatever.

The E-Type and its successors had neither the headlights nor the grille, but they were incredibly hot sports cars. Recognizable Jaguars, if of a different variety.

This car doesn't look like a Jag, and it's ugly. It's not distinctive, it's not attractive, it's nothing. If I'm paying Jag money, I want it to be a nice car. In point of fact, I want a Jaguar.

Is this really so unreasonable?

Why do we keep getting robocalls?

It makes no difference which party they represent. The instant that it's clearly a recording, I hang up. Huge waste of my time.

And on another front, I should think they're more expensive than volunteers. Possibly more reliable, and definitely less soul-killing (for your volunteers). But people have no compunction about hanging up on a recording, and I at least am always polite to the poor college students who call my house, even if they call for the opposing party. Calling lists is a miserable task.

The robocall tells the house that you're not bothering to have a real person call, so it's dismissive. The robocall is immediately ignored, so it is dismissed. And, for crying out loud, the election is tomorrow. If I don't know that, and if I don't know for whom I am voting, the robocall is not going to help me.

Just...stop.