Word: horror
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...outbursts amid its sullen patches, and plot twists that don't strain plausibility so much as ignore it. By the end, the movie has gone goofily gothic - more Wes Craven than Truman Capote - and you may be convinced that director Raimi meant "The Gift" to be a deadpan postmodernist horror comedy. The sole evidence to the contrary is Blanchett's performance: persuasive, subtle, impeccable. She seems the only guardian of sanity in this good-old-boy Bellevue...
...paper also bemoans the pre-packaging of many admission applications. It recounts horror stories of parents who take sabbaticals from work in order to manage their daughter's college applications; SAT tutors that cost hundreds of dollars and toddlers that have structured playtime. Yet Harvard itself could easily alleviate some of the pressure to create the perfect applicant by making SAT/ACT scores optional. Colleges that have already adopted this policy have found no gap in first year of grades of those admitted with SAT's and those without, despite the fact that the SAT scores of the former group were...
...none other than Harvard University appears to be following suit - sort of. Last week Harvard posted a paper on the admissions section of its website entitled "Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation." It is less a research study than a doomsday screed. The paper recounts horror story after horror story of stressed-out kids being foisted with consultants to get into elite grammar schools "with lower admission rates than Harvard" and being booked themselves solid with exotic hobbies and activities in order to wow admissions officers. The paper goes on to forecast a generation of thirty...
...supply of good old holiday cheer. The season has its immutable rituals-looking for that perfect tree, basting that hormone-injected dinner bird, setting up lighted lawn decorations (in Springfield Fla. this week, one man put up a display of two reindeer getting it on, much to his neighbors' horror-but that's an exception), and frantic last-minute dashes to the mall for almost-forgotten gifts. Ah yes, Holiday Happiness is everywhere-everywhere, that is, except Hollywood, where the promise of even temporary stability makes everyone act even weirder than usual...
...frustration factor is just one of the reasons some consumers still balk at booking travel online. Other obstacles include a continued reluctance to give credit-card information over the Internet (see box) and doubts about online agents' reliability. Then too there are the horror stories about travelers who booked online but got left high, dry and broke at the airport. Says Krista Pappas, director of the e-commerce travel division at Gomez, an Internet rating and research company: "As with anything where consumers are on a learning curve, there is some frustration. Is online booking perfect? No. But I think...