Happy Second Anniversary, Threedonia!!

On this day in 2008 some ones and zeros were uploaded to a vacant outpost on the world wide web and thus, rather inauspiciously, www.threedonia.com was born! As with most offspring, threedonia has developed quite differently than Floyd, Chuck and I foresaw, gazing through the celebratory cigar smoke on that storied day.

We began as [...]

3D Weekend Five: It's Comical

Here’s a five for the comic book collectors among you.  Archie was the only one I ever read, so — expand my horizons!  Favorites? recommendations?

A South Pacific Worth Revisiting

This week, PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center has reunited the cast from the 2008 multiple-Tony-award-winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Never my favorite of the duo’s, but I love the music; even if the “Small Town American Girl Overcomes Prejudice To Marry Rich Old French Dude” main plot always left me rolling my [...]

3D Weekend Five: TCM Guest Programmers-R-Us

If the Five seems to be a bit moviesque this August, it’s because this month is “Summer Under The Stars” on Turner Classic Movies.  That means for days at a time, Five retires to Our Fainting Couch to spend the night, or at least the wee hours, under with Our Favorite Stars.

We thrilled to Rathbone’s [...]

3D Weekend Five: The Royal We

The Five has taken to Our fainting couch this week, trying to recover from not one but two invitations lost in the post.  First the Clintons; now Michelle? what was the point of those new scarlet Louboutins? if not to put The Five at eye-level with all those divine Secret Service men.

Anyway.  Who’s your Top [...]

3D Weekend Five: Stranded at the Drive-In

This came to me last week when I saw #3 on TCM.  A hard shot back to my childish past: of jammies in public and speakers on the car window and rootbeer in mugs.

All mine are from The Golden Age of the Drive-In; feel free to theme-up however you prefer.  But consider what you’d like [...]

“First Kill All The Lawyers” In Love

Literature, art, music: all littered with genius compositions, sprung from the detritus of The Broken Heart.  Shakespeare and “Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing/and like enough thou knowest thy estimate.” …Clapton and the instrumental from Layla…[recently deceased] Johnny Maestro singing the ultimate wedding day blues with “The Worst That Could Happen” (“Baby, if he loves [...]

“Mad Men”: The Don of AMC

Screenwriting 101: Your audience must like something about your hero.  If they don’t, they won’t keep watching.  Make him a good man; a funny man; a strong man. And if he’s…morally questionable, make him the smartest man in the room.

The Sunday night premiere of Mad Men began, as it should have, with an off-screen voice [...]

3D Weekend Five: What's Your Shuffle?

Last year — first time — I burned selected i-Tunes onto a CD.  Thrilling for me to have progressed from mixed-tapeville.  I am Britta on NBC’s Community: I still haven’t accepted iPod into my life.

For those of you non-luddites out there, tell me what’s on your music gizmo today.  Me, I play certain songs on [...]

Open Thread Monday/The Morning After

For those of you wondering: this is how the Threedonia boys dressed for my birthday party.  Hey, when I celebrate, I don’t screw around.

Open Thread Sunday/Happy My Birthday!

Yes: it is l’anniversaire du Wankette!  Feel free to leave flowers, poetry, songs, psalms, naughty limericks…

I’m spending the day with a few of my favorite boys.  Of course, Aidan Turner’s Mitchell from Being Human tagged the overnight shift.  As a vampire should.

3D Weekend Five: Greatest Movie Openings

Scene, sequence, saying — what made you know you’d love it from the very start?

5.  Fame (1980): The auditions for the New York High School of the Performing Arts.  Lots of hope in the midst of the dreams & ignorance of youth: good, bad, and ugly.  And there’s Isaac Mizrahi, before he was famous, wearing [...]

One for the Boys: Megyn v. Kirsten

Because I’m a giver.

Via Ace HQ.  It’s a little Conservative Pron [sic] for you boys.

Don’t say I never get you nothin’.

3D Weekend Five: Hometown Heroes

This topic just came to me…out of a dream…or, uh, something.

Name your favorite local sports guys (or gals).  Because the WFive is all about taking you to Homer!Town.

5.  Tom Watson: An elegant golfer and man.  I love the fact that he’s still out there threatening, in his dotage.

4.  Len Dawson: Lenny the Cool stayed on [...]

3D Weekend Five: Summertime, and the living is...

This weekend makes it official.  And though I am currently living through the worst one ever, I can remember when summer meant a number of special, specific things in my life.

5.  watermelon: Summer’s taste.  The way we ate it — sitting on the porch, letting it drip all over, making a mess.

4.  inner tubes: Summer’s [...]

Because I Can Hubba: Robert Pattinson

Because he sure brings Teh Pretty.

Because in his interviews, he’s self-deprecating & funny — it’s the Brit in him — and that makes him the perfect man.

Because he refused to rise to the bait of the dumbass Entertainment Weekly reporter who tried to get him to knock author Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism.  He obviously likes and [...]

Heroic Hubba: Bobby Jindal

Because I’m sure most mornings he wakes up feeling like Yossarian.  Yet he keeps fighting the good fight.

Because yesterday I heard him explode, albeit politely, on Sean Hannity’s radio show. He was talking about the pig’s breakfast that various acronyms have been making of the oil spill.  Where’s the Diane Sawyer-lead-story wit’ dat?

Because I could [...]

Remembering Princess Diana

Margaret, are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving?/Leaves, like the things of man, you/With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

She would have been 49 today.

She was born a few weeks before me.  I confess, a bit sheepishly, that I’d always felt a connection because of that. Once we both hit 30, I’d taken comfort in [...]

3D Weekend Five: The Novelty Song

This came to me when I heard #2 on the car radio last week.  I know leaving out Weird Al is a grievous oversight, sure to be rectified by one of you boys.

There’s no Dr. Demento either, as “Dead Puppies” and “Fish heads” never cracked the Top 40.

I’m also omitting Novelty Songs-as-Clip-Packages, which were big [...]

The Call That Started It All

Apparently Glenn Beck came across the transcript:

“General McChrystal’s office.” “Yeah, man, this is Rolling Stone magazine and, like, dude, we’d like to do, like, an interview with, like, the guy who heads up all the baby-killers.” “Just a minute, I’ll put you right through.” (Phone ringing). “Yes?” “General McChrystal?” “Yes.” “Some dope-smoking hippie is on [...]

3D Weekend Five: TV Dads

– because Father’s Day is tomorrow, and last year we did Movie Dads.

A special shout-out to Dad du Wank, who is many things that make me crazy, and everything that a great father should be.

5.  Adam Braverman (Peter Krause, Parenthood): The Eldest Child as Good Father, with all the neurotic, perfectionist, overdoing, overbearing tics that [...]

3D Weekend Five: Elvis

– because, does he need more of a title than that?

I was not much of a fan until I was a grown-up, though I grooved on the occasional single.  This is probably because as a kid, I was dragged into secondhand fandom via a best friend who was an Elvis freak; by the age of [...]

3D Weekend Five: Teach Your Children

Teaching is a tough profession.  Largely because you rarely know if your work has any effect….while you’re doing it.  It’s the Johnny Appleseed of callings: you scatter your seeds of knowledge, knowing full well you won’t be around to see if, or when, they take root.

Today’s Five is in memory, and honor, of John Wooden. [...]

And Now, A Message From Your Sponsors - The 3D Bunch

We recently had one of our infrequent meetings of the Threedonian Ruling Council of Elders. It was fun, even though Floyd forgot to bring the bean dip (again) and Rufus insisted on trying on Wank’s do-me pumps, which was about as disturbing as you imagine. Nonetheless, we discussed, we argued, we laughed, we cried and [...]

3D Weekend Five: Summer Reading List

We did this last year, and it was fun.  What’s on your list for the season?  Maybe this summer we could figure out how to have a book club.  The floor is open for suggestions!

For my own, I have decided to follow a theme, and that theme is the court & times of Henry VIII. [...]

My Big Fat Persian Hubba: Jake Gyllenhaal

Because all this controversy is hilarious.  If I know Persian women — and I do; I am one — they won’t be checking out his authenticity.  They’ll be checking out his ass.

Because Jake looks way more Persian than my brother.  And my brother is way more Persian than Jake.

Because Avatar, shmavatar! where’s the 3D glasses [...]

“Sex and the City” and Me

“…he resents [my best friend] because he knows (all men know this instinctively) that we talk about him. That this talk is a matter of survival is something no man understands (or perhaps they do — how dare we survive them?).  All they know is that we have something they can’t touch or enter: a [...]

“We Wuz Robbed!” Hubba: Evan Lysacek & Anna Trebunskaya

Because he was the Olympic Ice King — a gold medalist who was put down as all technique and no art.  And she was the Russian Ice Queen who didn’t inspire emotional investment.  But they melted each other.

Because I already knew about their work ethic.  The past few weeks I saw them bring the [...]

Monday Morning Quarterback

Threedonians… we know many of you are too drunk “busy” to come around these parts on the weekend. Whatever it is you choose to do with your free time is of course our your business so we (meaning I) have decided to provide a weekend recap. This idea is of course stolen from [...]

3D Weekend Five: Family Affair

Because I missed it the first time, here is my Threedonia Cast (Admin): Rufus: Peter Krause/Floyd: Owen Wilson/Eric: John Cusack/Outlaw: Jason Statham/Rich: Steve Carell/John: Vince Vaughn/Kriskey: Tim McGraw

****************************************************************************

This was meant to be a Mother’s Day post, but I blew it.

Here’s Five Things You Didn’t Know About…My Mom.  You can make it Five Things We Didn’t [...]

Friday Gossip: You've Been Wanked!

Last night I noticed what should have been (ahem) a Classic Pick for today…1931, Norma Shearer & Robert Montgomery: Noel Coward’s Private Lives.

Shall I tell you what kind of memories this brings back?

Once upon a time, in a country soon to be ohsoimportant in the Grand Scheme of Things (back in 1989 it was just [...]

3D Weekend Five: Just Desserts

Diets out the window; childhood remembered.  Sweets to the sweet, baby!

5. pumpkin cheescake: Not especially fond of the base dessert, but somehow combining it with pumpkin elevates the whole thing to Are you fraking kidding me?

4. raspberry sherbet: Haven’t had it in years yet still recall it with fondness.

3. week-old birthday cake: Yeah, and I [...]

Life-to-Ashes Hubba: Philip Glenister

Because Ethan from The Searchers lives!

Because first in Life on Mars, then Ashes to Ashes (now showing Season 2 on BBCAmerica), he’s given us a police officer for the ages.

Because his DCI Gene Hunt is a non-PC dinosaur in a tar pit.  And Glenister makes him a hero.

Because he does a boffo Manchester accent.

Because he [...]

3D Weekend Five: Movie Themes

Somewhere between Rich’s request for most-played song on a movie soundtrack, and TCW’s mentioning RiffRaff (and thereby conjuring Silent Fiction Double Feature, not only a great tribute to that genre but a great song on its own), I remembered that this is a Five I’ve been musing over for a while.

Easier to divide according to [...]

WhoVerse Hubba: Matt Smith

Because he’s my first from-the-beginning Doctor Who.

Because five minutes into “The Eleventh Hour”  I was, “David who?”

Because of lines like “You’re Scottish — fry something!” and “Basically: run!” and “Bowties are cool.”  and “I am definitely a madman in a box.”

Because I am helpless in the face of geeky gallantry.

Because he makes me wonder if [...]

3D Weekend Five: The Birthday List

For those of you who don’t read my Weekend Five (and, p.s., up yours for that), here’s another chance to get your date on the list.

And for me to say: Happy Birthday, Firefly! whenever it was, you sneaky bastard.  You know I adore you because of, not despite, the subterfuge.

In honor of my nephew’s fifth [...]

“Ugly Betty”: That ‘Ship Has Sailed

In the great wide wonderful world that is internet fan devotion, a new vocabulary has arisen; a shorthand for the devoted and devout.  People who yearn for specific couples to – well – couple – are known as “shippers”, as in, “relationship”, as in, fans of a particular pairing. And yes, they get celebrity-branded with [...]

3D Weekend Five: Vacation

It’s Spring, and a Young ‘donian’s thoughts turn to…getting away from it all.

What are the five best vacations you ever took?

I’ll be back with mine soon but wanted to put this up so you could post yours.

3D Weekend Five: Religion in Film/TV

Edited to add: I just saw that this Fredric March film, One Foot in Heaven, is on TCM tomorrow at 6am EST.  Record it if you cannot watch it live — a little gem about the life of an itinerant Methodist minister and his patient wife (Martha Scott) and put-upon family.  How is this film not [...]

Classic Hubba: Toshiro Mifune

Because hot as he was when he was scruffy, he’s gut-punchingly gorgeous after he shaves:

Because the tough guy in him was always undercut by the passionate rogue.  And that’s what redeemed his characters.  That, and the sheer decency of the man, apparent even when he played the bandit in Rashomon.

Because while laid up I watched [...]

Weekend 3D: Bonding

– in the Ian Fleming sense, of course.  I’ve been thinking about this list for awhile.  Alter it at will…include Best Villain, Best Sidekick, Best Gimmick, etc.

5. Best Bond: Timothy Dalton.  Quit hissing.  I came of age in the Roger Moore era, which…ehhhhhh…so when I found out Tim had stepped in, I knew it was time [...]

Saturday Top 5 -- Comebacks (A Helping Hand)

Our beloved Wankette has fallen ill and must miss this weekend’s Top 5. Fellow Threedonians, please keep her in your prayers as I ever-so-gingerly don history’s largest shoes tightest-fitting stilettos …

1. Michael Keaton — Only Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy could legitimately challenge Keaton to the title of King of 80s comedies, but neither of [...]

Selection Sunday

The four #1s, in order: Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse.

Discuss away.

Brackets forming now!

3D Weekend Five: When I Was A Child...

This Weekend’s Five brought to you by a panic attack.

I was killing time, waiting for that gangsta-wannabe-misogynistic-piece-of-crap that is the soap opera I occasionally watch, to come on…sitting through another soap opera.  A long-time fan favorite was lecturing the latest seventeen-year-old soap hunk he didn’t realize was his own son (Soap Action 101!) on how [...]

Buck O'Neil

Former Kansas City Star (and current Sports Illustrated) scribe Joe Posnanski wrote the following column October 7, 2006 — the day after his friend (and frequent subject) Buck O’Neil passed away at 94.

I share it with you today because I shared it with some morons college students this morning and the resulting non-reaction hurt more [...]