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I know why you’re paranoid. They *are* out to get you.

Okay, some days you don’t know whether to cheer or scream when you’re proven right. At this year’s Chlotrudis nominating committee meeting last Saturday, I mentioned to several people the odd fact that one cannot search “Shortbus” on IMDB and get the intended result: the beautiful soul-enriching film by John Cameron Mitchell. Now, thoughts of censorship flashed through my mind, especially because I’d searched all the other 273 Chlotrudis-eligible titles without difficulty. And because you can get to the Shortbus page through a search for John Cameron Mitchell. But silly me. I gave IMDB the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a flaked out index.

Well don’t I feel stupid? Read this. Especially the part about the films you can find in IMDB.

Question 1: What’s the big fucking deal? It’s not as if they are screening the films. The “objectionable content” isn’t displayed and never has to be.

Question 2: 9 Songs? Hello…. no more porn that The Brown Bunny, which is unretrievable by title. And A Hole in My Heart is retrievable? Holy shit.

Question 3: How does Helen Mirren feel about the fact that people can get to Caligula through her entry on IMDB… but not by the title?

Question 4: Do you know who owns IMDB? Amazon.com. I know it’s convenient. But please think again before you buy anything from them. And I apologize in advance to my friends with wish lists. You may get duplicates.

Question 5: How are you supposed to know that you aren’t getting hits because you haven’t registered and enabled “adult titles” to come up in searches?

What the hell is wrong with people?

Oh, and get this! The blog post I referenced is wrong. You don’t need an IMDB Pro account to enable “adult content” searches. But you better not be using Internet Explorer! I don’t know why yet, but in Mozilla Firefox, I can enable such searches in my free, registered account. But even with this setting enabled, I can’t find Shortbus in Internet Explorer! And I can’t even find the setting in that browser. WTF?!

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I think I have a crush on an elf.

Now that I’ve discovered the world of alternate reality gaming (see my recent post about Cathy’s Book), I’ve become hooked on a little holiday nonsense known as The Reindeer Games. It consists of ten progressive puzzles released on a timetable over the twenty days before Christmas. As you solve each one, you’re given the password for the next. The first ones to respond correctly get points, too, but I got into the game a little late to rack up any points yet. But now I’m caught up through puzzle #4 and I am not sure how well I’ll sleep tonight with puzzle #5 coming out tomorrow!

But the best part of the game is emailing the PM my answers. The whole thing is run by this very clever, courteous, and gracious elf named Snowball McJinglebell. I can’t say enough good things about this marvelous sprite. And he works so hard managing this whole thing. I think I have a crush on him. Don’t tell Michael. Oh, yes, and Mrs. Claus is very sweet too.

But if you want to get in on the games, you better jump in there now. Only fifteen days left till the big holiday!