Today’s “Snide Remarks,” with a title that practically writes itself once you know what the story’s about — “Urine Trouble” — belongs to the genre of “Snide Remarks” columns wherein Eric Describes Things That Are Physically Wrong with Him. The incident occurred about five years ago, but I recently remembered it for some odd reason and thought, “Hey, I should tell that story in public!”

You can listen to the SnideCast version of this column on the page itself or here, and this is one that definitely benefits from hearing it read aloud. You can subscribe to the podcast using this URL, if you’re savvy with that sort of thing, you kids and your podcasts.

This week’s new films are “Hairspray” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.” So, you know, it’s a big week for the gays.

“Hairspray” is as delightful, upbeat, and entertaining a musical as has been produced in many, many years. Having seen the Broadway version, in which the gravel-voiced Harvey Fierstein played overweight housewife Edna Turnblad and earned a laugh every time he opened his mouth, I was skeptical about John Travolta taking the role for the movie. It didn’t help, of course, that nearly everything Travolta has done in the last 10 years has been horrific, and that the same applied to the director, Adam Shankman, whose previous work includes “The Pacifer,” “The Wedding Planner,” and “Cheaper by the Dozen 2.”

So you can imagine my rapturous surprise, then, when both the director and the actor proved to be just right, as is the entire film. It’s a genuinely positive, happy, feel-good movie, in the best possible way. If you come out of it and you’re not humming, then you must have done something wrong. Go back in and watch it again.

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Some kids don’t understand the Internet. They see their favorite celebrity’s name mentioned in a movie review, and they think whoever wrote the review knows that celebrity personally. So they write to the reviewer and ask, “Do you have Raven-Symone’s e-mail address?”

This causes the reviewer to post a blog entry making fun of these people — which only makes the problem worse, because now when you Google “Raven-Symone e-mail address,” the reviewer’s site comes up even higher on the search results. This causes more dumb kids to write asking for Raven’s address.

This causes the reviewer to post ANOTHER blog entry, which of course exacerbates the problem even further, Google-wise.

Finally, the reviewer posts a blog entry saying, “Here is Raven-Symone’s e-mail address: symone.raven@gmail.com. By the way, that’s not really her address. I registered it myself; the e-mails come to me. I’m posting it to see if you idiots actually write to it, which I’m sure you will, because you probably are not reading this sentence.”

Post-finally, people reprint that e-mail address all over the Web (without the “it’s not real” disclaimer, of course), and “Raven” gets hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. They are reprinted for you here, with the best parts in bold type, as:

CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO RAVEN-SYMONE

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Do you like reading columns about retarded dogs that poop everywhere? If so, then you’re in for a treat today! This week’s “Snide Remarks” Classic, entitled “Stuff Happens,” is an entry from Feb. 2, 2003, that addresses that very topic! It’s about the week I spent dogsitting for a friend and coworker. She thanked me with a $50 gift card at Nordstrom, which was very thoughtful of her. However, the psychological scars linger to this day, and no amount of overpriced department store merchandise can compensate for that.

It’s been far too long since we’ve shined a spotlight on some of the less intelligible comments that people have posted on EricDSnider.com. Here’s a batch, taken mostly from movie reviews.

DUMB COMMENTS POSTED ON ERICDSNIDER.COM

“Romeo Must Die”:

Ummmm Hmmm Thas a Lie I love romeo must Die n always will coz ever1 in ther is ma favourite actors but serioursly man u need to ummm hmmm i don no go ova tha movie and actualli get it from a person that has a lyphe point of view… and then mayb you would come back to earth… just a thought dont take it the heart….

[I believe this comment was written by a kitty cat.]

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This week’s “Snide Remarks,” entitled “Wand for the Money,” is a fire sale on all the Harry Potter gags that have been lounging in the back of my mind the last few weeks. With the final book going on sale this Saturday, I figured now was the time to get rid of them. You can hear a recording of me reading the column right there on the page, or here, or you can subscribe to the podcast using this URL.

Speaking of Mr. Potter, if you have not already ordered “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” from Amazon for the low low price of $17.99, you only have until Tuesday at noon to do so if you want it delivered on Saturday. Amazon is even guaranteeing Saturday delivery — as in, if it doesn’t arrive on that day, you get your money back. So you can order it from them and rest assured you’ll have it on the day of its official release, just as soon as your fatigued, broken-backed mailman can carry it to your door after carrying 100 other copies to 100 other doors.

You can order it here. Not only can, but should.

Speaking of “Live Free or Die Hard,” someone named “Pumpkin” posted a comment on my review of it wondering if, given the PG-13 rating, that meant Bruce Willis didn’t get to say his famous line, “Yippee-ki-yay, mother******.”

“BeeDub” responded, accurately, that Willis does say it, but there’s a gunshot over the crucial syllable.

Meanwhile, “Turkey” said: “I thought you had to drop three F-bombs to deserve an R, depending on the context. Or is MF the exception?”

For years and years, the MPAA wouldn’t lay out specific hard-and-fast rules for which elements would get you which ratings, even though it was apparent that they were (somewhat consistently) following some kind of internal system.

They’ve just recently begun to open up, though, and this page has become very useful.

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Got a lovely e-mail from someone named Paul who enjoyed “Live Free or Die Hard,” as well as my review of it. He added this:

But I don’t know who all these people are who think the title is dumb — I think it kicks [butt]. I can just see the guys in Iraq painting that slogan on their tanks.

I thanked Paul for his kind words about my review, and said I guess the title seems dumb because … well, what does it MEAN? “Live Free or Die Hard.” Sure, it sounds cool, but what does it actually mean?

He responded:

I guess I took it as “Live Free or Die Hard (trying to be free).”

Or maybe “(Let us) Live Free (you terrorists, or you’re going to) Die Hard.”

Um…..yeah, I guess it’s dumb.

I applaud Paul’s efforts to try to make sense of the title.

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Some people take umbrage at the way critics write their reviews in such authoritative tones — and that umbrage is entirely misplaced.

I was reminded of this by a comment someone posted here recently:

The issue I have with MOST of the reviews is the same I have with nearly every review ever penned, stating ones opinion as fact, and that IS pompous.

It’s a familiar sentiment, echoed all over the Internet:

I never listen to critics or take them seriously. They like to pass their opinions as fact. Not everyone has the same taste/opinion, ergo their point sort of becomes moot. (Comment on a video-gaming site.)

(In other words, since many readers will have opinions different from the reviewer’s, the reviewer might as well not even bother writing his.)

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Portland is a great town for geeks. Several comic book writers, artists, and publishers make their homes here. You can’t swing a light saber in this town without hitting some skinny hipster with black nerdy-cool glasses and a vintage T-shirt, ready to talk about why the second half of season 13 of “The Simpsons” was better than the first half of season 9. And Portlanders love the work of Joss Whedon: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” and the film “Serenity.”

My first up-front exposure to this devotion was Tuesday night, when I joined some friends at the McMenamins Mission Theater to watch the two-hour pilot episode of “Firefly.” Sponsored by KUFO and McMenamins, they’ll be screening two episodes every Tuesday night at the Mission until they’ve finished the series … which won’t take long, since it only lasted 15 episodes, counting the two-hour pilot as two.

I had seen the first six episodes that Fox aired back in 2002, but that did not include the pilot. Fox didn’t like the pilot, so they aired another episode as the premiere and didn’t show the actual pilot until the very end, when they had given up on the series and were just burning off episodes. And by then I wasn’t watching anymore.

Shame on me, because I’ll be doggoned if the pilot isn’t a fine piece of entertainment.

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