Vortex Drinking Game

I know. It's Monday. How inappropriate to be thinking of spirits so early. But I was catching up on my DVR-ed Person of Interest eppies and had an epiphany: Reese shoots people in the leg. All. The. Time.

This may not sound like a grand revelation; and if you are familiar with his Batman-ish vigilante code, you would understand why this is significant, but it started me thinking about what else we can count on with regularity here at the Vortex (It certainly isn't my posts-ha!). Here's your game:

Vortex Drinking Game

Every time you look at Jim Caviezel and cannot help thinking Jesus Christ!, take a shot.

Every time you wish you had a time machine to take you back to before you put your foot in your mouth, take a shot.

Every time someone alters "MacGyver" into a new part of speech (as in "I Macgyvered that dryer vent with duct tape"), take a shot.

Every time you watch Terra Nova and are tempted to feed the Shannon family to the dinosaurs so you can have Jim all to yourself, take a shot.

Every time you see man-titty on a novel cover, in homage to Fabio and Romancelandia, take a shot.

Every time you're watching a movie that tiptoes dangerously close to the creepy-older guy/too young girl romance (ala Thorn Birds, Portrait of Jeannie, Harum Scarum), take a shot.

Every time you wish Lost would come back, take a shot.

Every time you see a red telephone booth, take a shot.

Every time you see a chatchke that feeds into the Elvis Presley estate machine, take a shot.

Every time you hear a Keith Urban song and wish to go down under (take that how you will), take a shot.

Every time you feel the injustice of an unfair Words with Friends move, take a shot.

Every time someone speaks of the truth and your mind immediately heads for Mulder and Scully, take a shot.

Every time you hear the word quantum, take a shot.

Every time you see a close-up shot of Beth Chapman's talons or spiked heels on Dog the Bounty Hunter, take a shot. (Seriously, we got that she's a vixen already)

Every time you watch a Harry Potter movie or a Beavis and Butthead episode with another person who then insists on imitating the unique vocal qualities of either ad nauseum, take a shot.

Every time your watch stops, take a shot.

Happy Monday and Happy Drinking, everyone!

Seventeen Hankies

At the risk of alienating Vortex readers who are not Losties, I wouldn't be navigating true north here without acknowledging the cathartic, fetal-position goodness that came full circle with this week's series finale. Yes, it is bizarre to count used tissues, but the couch cushion next to me held such an absurd pile, I had to quantify it. Then I decided making my own hankie scale would be more fun than a tornado in a trailer park. We'll start small:

No hankies

This is Snoopy Come Home and The Wonder Years goodness where you feel like a hairball is crowding your throat. You can't look away from the screen because the merciless teasing you would endure from your couch mates would know no bounds.

One hankie

Little House on the Prairie comes to mind here. That damned Michael London really knew how to squeeze maximum emotion out of those pioneer family crises, but there's only so much catharsis when you can't relate to a Walnut-Grove-sized drought.

Two hankies

This is Army Wives for me. Yeah, sometimes because of the inevitable good-bye moments, but mostly because watching Drew Fuller makes me weep for the sagging middle in my work-in-progress. And his Keanu Reeves-style acting ability is atrocious; but, hey, a girl has to get inspiration from somewhere, right?

Three hankies

We're at Somewhere in Time-level here. My love-fest for this film stems not only from the birth of my time travel preoccupation, but for its ability to consistently draw tears after I've watched it more times than any other movie ever made. Ditto for the soundtrack.

Five hankies

Definitely Bridges of Madison County cry-fest here. The movie-not the book. The scene where Meryl Streep has her hand poised on the truck's door handle and she's watching Robert Kincaid's taillights had the internal waterworks rivaling the frog-strangling rain on screen.

Ten hankies

Titanic. I watched this in a small town theater in middle-of-nowhere Kansas. This might have been an eight for me, but listening to barrel-chested John Deere plowmen lose it around me ratchets up my sobbing. I'm sure more than one farmer got his man card revoked after that night.

So you see, that's why LOST's finale was so impressive. It was akin to saying long lost-hellos and final goodbyes to everyone a family reunion except bidding Sawyer adieu proved far more difficult than leaving crazy Aunt Edna who eats salad with her fingers and thinks all women who read romance novels are spineless idiots. I wept for the sheer WTH-ery the writers dished out that will keep people debating a decade from now and for the time-travel awesomeness it brought to millions each week. And, for the extra hours in my life I'll now have to lay out my own hankie-worthy story on the page.

Lastly, a huge hug to Marilyn for sending this Lost re-enactment tribute by cats. I hope my Jon gift is enough thanks.

Your turn. Inject your hankie-worthy screen or book experiences into the scale. Let us know where they rank for you. Oh, and gentlemen, we promise not to revoke your man card if you say anything but Old Yeller, which I'm told is a guy freebie from fourth grade.

What? No Fandant Smoke Monster?

Delinquency or love? Mostly love. I adored that quasi time-traveler photo last week and wanted to know what everyone thought of it, so I left it up. All. Week. But, as with all delicious things, we must move on. Speaking of delicious, someone who-shall-remain-nameless has a b-day coming up. Wouldn't this TARDIS cake score perfection points? If I can't have the LOST cake, of course. The Sawyer piece.

Favorite writing quote overheard this week: "I could've eaten Alphabits and crapped out a better novel."

For the high-brow among us: new research on how our brain perceives time. David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, runs one of the only laboratories in the world dedicated to experiments seeking hard data on how humans internalize time. Eagleman discovered that the human brain runs two clocks, one that "feeds you a perception of the now, and another that is constantly at work tidying up that perception." This tidying clock, to preserve the tremendous amount of mental energy needed, will often predict everyday stimulus that flow by unnoticed. When an out-of-the-ordinary event occurs, it seems to take longer to occur because this tidying clock could not predict it. Understanding the brain's internal time sensors has important ramifications in the study of mental illnesses, specifically hallucinations reported by schizophrenics that are potentially a time-delay of stimulus-response normally experienced near-simultaneously. Two fist bumps and a snap for the reporter who strapped on an iron pair and participated in Eagleman's fifteen story free fall experiment in the name of science.

Random Monday question:

If you wrote a screenplay on the last hour of your life (that just expired), what would you title it?

Ariadne Votes for Castration

Feed subscriptions to The Vortex have reached an all-time high. Two fist bumps and a snap to those of you who have hung around, bookmarked, linked up or otherwise shown the love. I believe there comes a time for all blogs, good, bad or obscure, to evaluate what's working and what's not. That's where you come in, my pretties.

I've set up a poll on the left. Tell me what you'd like to see more of. If you don't have an opinion one way or the other, tell me your favorite candy bar. Or deli meat. Deli meat is good.

For reasons which shall remain top-secret 007 Bond girl-territory, I have undergone an intense week-long study of forty five works of art from the Renaissance to the Modern Period. My favorite might be Anton Francesco degli Albizzi by Sebastiano del Piombo. Anton looks like a choirboy version of Rob Schneider. Serious mutton chops. A Renaissance Queer Eye who commissioned this work and convinced the artist that size did matter and pink was the new black.

My second favorite is probably Angelica Kauffman's Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus:

I'm pretty sure her right hand is raised, not as a symbol of her distress at being abandoned on a remote island by her true love after she kicked some femme-fatale ass on a monster to save him, but as a Romanticism-style middle-finger gesture. Would she not had to cradle her head in her left hand, I feel confident she would be shooting Theseus's departing ship the double-bird. Carry on Ariadne, your Sawyer awaits on the other side of the island, thirty years ago.

Speaking of which, as I'm all up into the art thing, ABC released three Lost Supper images to celebrate the Lost's final season.

I'm sure in the Lost mythology, there is a direct correlation between each Lostie and their respective position when compared to da Vinci's original, but even Leonardo wouldn't have chosen such a hideous shade for Sawyer's shirt. My grandmother has a better pattern on her sofa.

Art-out. Peace.

Don't forget to vote!

Smiles Forgotten, Smiles Lost, Smiles Found

Many congrats to Robin, who won the free copy of Kim Lenox's So Still the Night. Robin, email me your address at la-mitchell@la-mitchell.com and I'll drop it in the mail.

I can only assume (and hope) from the quiet activity in the blogosphere this past weekend that my American Vortex readers were out celebrating Memorial Day weekend with more than just mattress sales and Ball Park franks. Last year, I had the honor of turning an old, forgotten box of photos from boot camp and the Korean War into a scrapbook for a very special veteran. This man has had a hard road. Very few times do I remember him smiling or showing emotion. On the day I presented it, he cried. I get it now in a way I never got it before. Seeing him standing on a tank, youthful and vibrant, arms linked with his gunner or enjoying a cigarette with his buddies laughing about some secret lost to everyone but them helped me see him in a new light. Sadly, I think his army days are the only true happiness he has ever found in life. He keeps the dark, leather-bound book, hidden compartment in the back for his medals and dogtags, by his favorite chair. I'm told he looks at it daily. He is my window into Memorial Day, and he is why I Tweet to ReMIND today.

Here's a peep at my birthday cake yesterday:

Okay, just kidding. But who wouldn't want a fondant Sawyer and Dharma beer to help them usher in the next year?

Since May is passing in a blurr, cram-packed with celebratory rites of passage for those around me, I offer up my new favorite blog-indulgence: Awkward Family Photos. It is the laughable humiliation we all share. Be sure to go back several pages to see the true comedic morsels.

Have a great Monday, everyone!