A Scoop Run

Growing up in Indiana, there weren't many divertisements for young honor roll students, so my friend A and I amused ourselves by driving to the local ice creamery, circling the place, honking and laughing all the while. This was a event singly humorous to ourselves. In this recreation, I take a certain, unwilling husband on a "scoop run" and discover that he is also was not amused.

Thank You for Smoking

Over the weekend we watched Thank You for Smoking - it was a good movie - so funny, smart... but mostly I was just overwhelmed by how totally hot Aaron Eckhart is. Holy moly, that guy is hot. The hair! The chin! Then Rob Lowe pops up (who is hilarious as the Hollywood product placement go-between, btw) and what happens but HE looks terribly hot too! I haven't thought Rob Lowe was hot since 1985 - St. Elmo's Fire. So, I've been playing an agonizing game of Who Would You Do with myself. I mean... well, who would you do?

Calorie Overextended Diet

I've been reading a bit about this Calorie Restricted (CR) Diet in which people eat about 1000 calories a day and actually live healthy lives that are supposedly 50% longer than the lives of the rest of us who eat, you know, sustaining diets of... food. A certain husband with a fear of death is turned on by the idea - I hate it. It seems to me like there's just a few calories difference between these CR people and anorexics. How come you can die of anorexia but live 50% longer of this other type of starvation?

Another thing that really gets me is this "research" involving one starved monkey and one that, uh, ate - and in their dotage, the starved monkey is apparently thriving, while the other one spends its day lazily playing euchre and falling asleep in an easy chair in front of the tv. Here's the picture from the NY Times article and the accompanying caption, "Canto, left, a rhesus monkey, is aging fairly well at 25 on a calorie restriction diet. Owen, though only a year older than Canto, is frail and moves slowly. He eats a normal diet."


Well, this Thanksgiving I've been feeling a little like Owen, indulging in what can only be described as a Calorie Overextended Diet (CO).

Leona Naess

Here are three beautiful songs by Leona Naess.

offensive people

M. and I saw an unprecedented two movies last weekend – Casino Royale and Borat. Borat was hysterical, and I was glad we saw it in the theatre - it's the sort of thing that's fun in a crowd. If you're avoiding it because you think it might be too harsh, don't – it's too funny – and while Borat has a way of bringing out the Michael Richards in people, Cohen makes Borat the most offensive character (if you don't know what I'm talking about, what a clip that is harsh: Borat singing Throw the Jew Down the Well, while hillbillies sing along.)

I've had a kind of crappy week – our power's been on and off, making internetting and job searching difficult – not to mention just puttering around the house. My landlord, otherwise known as The Most Despicable Person on Earth, actually yelled at me (ME!) when I complained. Today the power went off in the middle of my favorite new television show: Free Style. I'm really nuts about Free Style and Design Remix – two HGTV shows where they design a room using materials people already have in their houses. In Free Style, they don't spend any money, and in Design Remix, they might spend like 50 bucks on paint. Unlike other shows that have a “low” budget (like Trading Spaces $1000) they design really cool spaces and don't end up tricking them out with a thousand dollars worth of IKEA furniture. I don't know why people go on Trading Spaces – all they do is completely DESTROY rooms. Plus Paige is so goddamn annoying.

Casino Royale

The new Bond movie, Casino Royale, in a fascinating departure from previous Bond movies, is really great! The new Bond is Daniel Craig (according to imdb.com, he's slated to play Lord Asriel in the upcoming His Dark Materials - haven't read the books? Where have you been?). At first I thought he was a little too pasty and, you know, English to be a hot Bond, but the man has some sharp pecs. The opening sequence is really exciting – I'd say along the lines of X2, you know, the one where the lizard-guy runs around the White House and bursts into the Oval Office? That was so hot. Bond chases this guy who's like some kind of Olympian jumper who leap frogs all over a construction site. Later, Bond must win a multi-million dollar game of Texas Hold-em, neatly tying in with our national obsession. Although I found myself wondering, “Now, why must he win this multi-million dollar poker game?” Oh yes, for some reason. It mostly makes sense – not like so many other action movies where directors simply try to distract their audiences with flashy Matrix-style fight sequences. Casino Royale presents Bond at the beginning of his career as a double-oh, and even strives to present a little insight re: his attitude toward the ladies. It's Q-less and therefore less gadgety, but I think all those gadgets are kind of dopey anyway.

I think there was a missed opportunity to punch up the classic Bond theme song – I'm thinking something like what U2 did with the Mission Impossible ditty a few years ago. Also the asthmatic villain whose eye bleeds is kind of Boris - when he captured Bond I thought for sure he was going to throw him in a tank full of sharks with friggin' laser beams on their heads.

Hairy Potter

OMG! The trailer for Order of the Phoenix is out! That's one of my fave HP books. So, we see Harry about to kiss Cho (did they kiss in the book?) and his hair is really short. I liked it better shaggy. Man, I hope these poor kids don't end up all Dana Plato one day.

Gezelligheid

Twee oud jenever, alstublieft!* M and I just got back from our vacation to Amsterdam, which was so beautiful - we had a wonderful time. We stayed in a really cool hotel, the Eden Rembrandt Square, which is in a great location in the canal belt. Every day we went to museums, like the Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh museum, the Stedelijk, the Frans Hals museum in Haarlem, and to famous houses, like Rembrandthuis, and Anne Frank's house and the Willet-Holthuysen house. I've read Anne Frank's diary about 50 times, so it was very exciting to see her house, although also terribly sad. I never realized it was on such a lovely canal street. There is no furniture anymore, so you have to imagine all the beds, which is difficult to do because it's very small. Anne's room is easily recognizable because the walls still have her magazine pictures pasted on.

Our favorite thing to do was to walk along the canals at night, looking at the reflections in the water and peeking into people's windows, which, according to my Frommer's, is not discouraged. We also spent a fair amount of time in pubs, drinking local beer and eating cheese. It's just ridiculously charming there - everyone rides bikes, all the cafes have a cat, when you go to a restaurant or bar, all the tables have candles. Supposedly when the canals ice over in the winter, people ice-skate to work!

Bonus! We come home and the dems have taken back congress and Britney dumped K Fed. That's one small step for man and one big step for mankind.

Here we are doing our best impressions of Dutch genre figures.

* Two old gins, please!

Most people are other people

I read this really depressing quote by Oscar Wilde the other day - on a t-shirt, of all things, for sale somewhere online. To wear it would be some kind of uber-irony, I suppose:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

I just looked it up, and found this longer bit, although I'm not sure of the citation:

People...go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realizing that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. ...Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

For the most part, I think this is true, especially based on my experience with plagiarisers in my classes. I wonder when one becomes afraid of their own ideas?

Someone left a comment on my book blog today, I feel with ill intent. What kind of person goes around reading people's book blogs leaving nasty comments? I suppose I'm mostly shocked that someone I don't know happened upon my blog. Well, thanks a lot, Grandma (if that IS your real name). Thanks for kicking a girl when she's down, which, fyi, is just about all the time now.

I found an awesome poem:

Dove in the Arch by Robert Desnos

Cursed!
be the father of the bride
of the blacksmith who forged the iron for the axe
with which the woodsman hacked down the oak
from which the bed was carved
in which was conceived the great-grandfather
of the man who was driving the carriage
in which your mother met your father.

I feel like drawing it.
Discuss: would Oscar Wilde love or hate blogs?

Boo

Kaya wants to bite you

Kaya vants to suck your blood