Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

  • Marc Boudreau

    People who put country restrictions on their uploads, please know that I hate you.

    • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

      It’s not “people” so much as cable networks who are beholden to local operators. It sucks. There are googleable workarounds!

      • Marc Boudreau

        Yeah, I know I could find a work around and have in the past it just bothers me when it happens.

        The internet has no borders.

        • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

          Absolutely. Cable monopolies, however, do. 

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

    Aww . . . instead of Cinetopia, they could have  filmed this in one of Portland’s genuinely odd non-chain movie places, like the Clinton Street Theater or Hollywood Theater.

    The former . . . I once went to the Clinton to see my first Bollywood movie. There, was, I swear, one guy running the place. He jumped between the little ticket window and the concession counter, and then when he thought that everyone who was coming had been seated, ran upstairs to start the projector.

    (The Clinton runs things like an evening of films made for Mormon teens, and a Scopitone film festival.)

    • folkclarinet

      I read the “chain-iness” of the place as being critical of the tendency of chains to jump on bandwagons like “artisanal” whatever…

      • gamophyte

         Right and it’s this contrast in my mind, that makes it funny. Also, ya don’t want bad publicity for real places. Some people think it’s real life.

  • LinkMan

    The Landmark Sunshine Cinema on NYC’s Lower East Side prides itself on its gourmet concession bar: “Espresso bar, vegan cookies, caramel popcorn, 10 different popcorn seasonings, Swiss chocolate and more!”

    • Antinous / Moderator

      I was bitterly disappointed when I moved from SF to Palm Springs and discovered that European chocolates aren’t the norm at theater concession counters. From Lindt to Whoppers. Lucifer has nothing on me.

      • blueelm

        I don’t really like to eat while I watch movies (I know, weird) but I grew up seriously mostly having only gone either to theaters that served food there while you watched, museums/galleries that were showing film, or old theaters. Some times there’s such a thing as being too lucky :/

  • http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

    “Sundried grapes!”

    I think it was someone’s BoingBoing comment that defined “artisanal” as “an otherwise mundane object, but made by someone with a post-graduate degree.”

  • Cowicide

    Pfft… this is only available in 720p HD?  I much prefer 1080p HD that more resembles 35mm analog film.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4n6OVoyYQ  (language nsfw)

  • http://babyzoink.com Gregory Bloom

    I continue to be astonished at the popularity of cringe-humor such as Portlandia and Arrested Development.  Watching people be stupid is only fractionally different from pointing and laughing at a crippled person.  Maybe it’s supposed to be that we’re laughing at a whole subculture being stupid?  So it’s really more like laughing at all cripples?  Or am I just missing some deeper, essential source of humor in these shows?

    • Antinous / Moderator

      If God didn’t want us to laugh at stupid people, why did he make them so funny?

    • blueelm

      You know I laugh for an entirely different reason. To me it is based on empathy with the “straight man” or empathy with the ridiculous person, depending on whether I’m feeling more awkwardly obliging of stupidity or awkwardly stupid. Hence the cringe isn’t one of contempt, but based on the ability to relate to the person who is so very very stupid.

      Must be nice to be smarter than all us cripples!

      • echar

        This just made me think of a skit, or maybe hell:

        A pre-laugh checklist. Was it politically correct, was it schadenfreude, would I laugh if it was me in this position, does data dream of electric sheep when his head is removed, would data help an overturned tortoise in the desert,  did this list get a bit odd, etc…?  However there is another checklist for the kind of laugh. Will it be a guffaw, a snort, a chortle, a full belly laugh, a snicker, etc.?

    • kringlebertfistyebuns

      A critical difference:  The disabled have no choice in the matter.  The stupid can stop being stupid with some effort.