Saturday, December 31, 2005
The year in review
This year was... a BLUR, lol. Here are the main points that I can still remember:
My little angel girl, the tiny squirrel that had been the light of my life for a year because I could hand-feed and pet her, paid me a special visit that I now think was meant as a good-bye, and then went away, never to return. :-(
Although we'd never seen a possum in all the years we've lived here, one started visiting us, eating the buffet we put out for him right outside our sliding glass door so we could watch him up close... and then another came... and another... and another. :-)
We got digital cable, and a whole new world of channels opened up; I've seen a zillion science and fashion programs, and enjoy always having 30 movies to choose from.
The greatest non-scifi series ever made, "Queer as Folk," ended... badly.
After 20 loooong years, Stephen King finished his "Dark Tower" series... brilliantly.
I had an underwear-related early midlife crisis; my panties and socks are so nice now that I almost want to hang them up on the wall. ;-)
I got a smokin' new laptop.
We've endured more plagues of vermin than the entire Bible describes.
I saved a bird. :-)
Because 2 of my bill payments vanished into the postal ether, I switched to online banking, thus saving a great deal of time, but adding alot of aggravation as I discovered that Bank of America is capable of even more kinds of weirdness and stupidity than I'd previously thought.
I got a 2nd pair of shoes... but haven't worn them yet.
I took over the management of my husband's Blockbuster online account; with ME keeping track of everything, it's amazing how many more DVD's we get, since he can no longer take weeks, or even MONTHS, to get them watched and returned... and with me choosing and prioritizing the DVD's in the queue, we're getting GOOD stuff now (my husband doesn't always agree, but since he's too lazy to make any effort anymore, he's out of luck).
My husband and I were both featured in major publications (I REALLY wish I could tell you about it, but I can't without compromising my anonymity).
The wildly overdue clearing out of my husband's junk, and the organization of our home, have begun.
I met alot of terrific bloggers; be sure to click their links in my list and see for yourself.
I made significant progress with my tech knowledge, eBay acquisitions of collectibles, and, by far the most importantly, my spiritual understanding.
I blogged alot. Every day. Every single day.
Mostly, though, I just lived life at a dead run for 365 days; I wonder how anyone could ever be bored, when there's so much to do, say, think and learn.
I hope you'll have a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve; I'll raise my glass of eggnog to all of you at midnight.
My little angel girl, the tiny squirrel that had been the light of my life for a year because I could hand-feed and pet her, paid me a special visit that I now think was meant as a good-bye, and then went away, never to return. :-(
Although we'd never seen a possum in all the years we've lived here, one started visiting us, eating the buffet we put out for him right outside our sliding glass door so we could watch him up close... and then another came... and another... and another. :-)
We got digital cable, and a whole new world of channels opened up; I've seen a zillion science and fashion programs, and enjoy always having 30 movies to choose from.
The greatest non-scifi series ever made, "Queer as Folk," ended... badly.
After 20 loooong years, Stephen King finished his "Dark Tower" series... brilliantly.
I had an underwear-related early midlife crisis; my panties and socks are so nice now that I almost want to hang them up on the wall. ;-)
I got a smokin' new laptop.
We've endured more plagues of vermin than the entire Bible describes.
I saved a bird. :-)
Because 2 of my bill payments vanished into the postal ether, I switched to online banking, thus saving a great deal of time, but adding alot of aggravation as I discovered that Bank of America is capable of even more kinds of weirdness and stupidity than I'd previously thought.
I got a 2nd pair of shoes... but haven't worn them yet.
I took over the management of my husband's Blockbuster online account; with ME keeping track of everything, it's amazing how many more DVD's we get, since he can no longer take weeks, or even MONTHS, to get them watched and returned... and with me choosing and prioritizing the DVD's in the queue, we're getting GOOD stuff now (my husband doesn't always agree, but since he's too lazy to make any effort anymore, he's out of luck).
My husband and I were both featured in major publications (I REALLY wish I could tell you about it, but I can't without compromising my anonymity).
The wildly overdue clearing out of my husband's junk, and the organization of our home, have begun.
I met alot of terrific bloggers; be sure to click their links in my list and see for yourself.
I made significant progress with my tech knowledge, eBay acquisitions of collectibles, and, by far the most importantly, my spiritual understanding.
I blogged alot. Every day. Every single day.
Mostly, though, I just lived life at a dead run for 365 days; I wonder how anyone could ever be bored, when there's so much to do, say, think and learn.
I hope you'll have a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve; I'll raise my glass of eggnog to all of you at midnight.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Today's bits and pieces
I had a lovely surprise today; a marathon on the Discovery Channel of "Going Tribal," the show where British hottie Bruce Parry lives with various tribal peoples and adopts their ways, including things like eating live grubs, taking dangerous hallucinogenic drugs, allowing them to pierce and scar him, and, my personal favorite, walking around naked with them... which means showing his splendid tattooed butt. They DID show a bare-butt episode, so my evening was complete. ;-)
There's a Swiss company called Pat Says Now that's raised the humble computer mouse to an art form; if you look here
http://www.pat-says-now.com/english/privatkunden.php?from=/english/vision.php
you'll see mice that are chili peppers, cats, hearts, brains, dogs, and women's torsos, mice with skulls, cow spots, ducks and fish floating in liquid, and even Swarovski crystals... most of them aren't very ergonomic, but they're seriously cute.
Also cute, especially if you're a cat lover, are the astonishing array of Flash clocks I found on this site
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~mirin22t/tokeiDL.html
Yeah, it's a Japanese site, but each clock is next to its code (you need to scroll down to get to the 1st one), so you don't need to be able to read anything; there are 6 pages of clocks, so if you don't have one you love yet, take a look, because there's a bunch of good 'uns.
The last amazing thing I saw today was from the December 2005 Vogue, in an article called "Unhappy Meals":
"When I was growing up, no one I knew had a food allergy. Now, it seems, everyone knows someone who has one. Why has this happened? The answer, frighteningly enough, remains unclear."
"The most widely accepted idea is what's known as the hygiene hypothesis. Food allergies are due to an overactive immune system, which reacts to the protein in a certain food as if it were a parasite and creates antibodies (called IgE) that are specific to that food. The hygiene hypothesis holds that a decrease in childhood illness has left our immune systems with nothing to do but lash out against all the wrong things. In other words, by making our children too healthy, we have put them in danger."
In our arrogance, we've always assumed that we could alter the way our species lived for thousands of years and it would be an unblemished success; the reality is that we evolved to exist in an essentially animal way out in the natural world, and although there aren't many people who think that we'd be better off without agriculture, medicine, and homes in places where the only dangerous predators are of the 2-legged variety, you'd be hard-pressed to find any aspect of our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual beings in which we aren't pitifully weak compared to tribal peoples... that's the price we've paid for becoming "civilized." That'd be a useful thing for scientists to study... but don't count on it happening any time soon.
There's a Swiss company called Pat Says Now that's raised the humble computer mouse to an art form; if you look here
http://www.pat-says-now.com/english/privatkunden.php?from=/english/vision.php
you'll see mice that are chili peppers, cats, hearts, brains, dogs, and women's torsos, mice with skulls, cow spots, ducks and fish floating in liquid, and even Swarovski crystals... most of them aren't very ergonomic, but they're seriously cute.
Also cute, especially if you're a cat lover, are the astonishing array of Flash clocks I found on this site
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~mirin22t/tokeiDL.html
Yeah, it's a Japanese site, but each clock is next to its code (you need to scroll down to get to the 1st one), so you don't need to be able to read anything; there are 6 pages of clocks, so if you don't have one you love yet, take a look, because there's a bunch of good 'uns.
The last amazing thing I saw today was from the December 2005 Vogue, in an article called "Unhappy Meals":
"When I was growing up, no one I knew had a food allergy. Now, it seems, everyone knows someone who has one. Why has this happened? The answer, frighteningly enough, remains unclear."
"The most widely accepted idea is what's known as the hygiene hypothesis. Food allergies are due to an overactive immune system, which reacts to the protein in a certain food as if it were a parasite and creates antibodies (called IgE) that are specific to that food. The hygiene hypothesis holds that a decrease in childhood illness has left our immune systems with nothing to do but lash out against all the wrong things. In other words, by making our children too healthy, we have put them in danger."
In our arrogance, we've always assumed that we could alter the way our species lived for thousands of years and it would be an unblemished success; the reality is that we evolved to exist in an essentially animal way out in the natural world, and although there aren't many people who think that we'd be better off without agriculture, medicine, and homes in places where the only dangerous predators are of the 2-legged variety, you'd be hard-pressed to find any aspect of our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual beings in which we aren't pitifully weak compared to tribal peoples... that's the price we've paid for becoming "civilized." That'd be a useful thing for scientists to study... but don't count on it happening any time soon.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
A thing of beauty
I almost missed it, buried in an article of wildly expensive things you might buy for the loved one who has everything in the December 2005 Vogue; a mostly-blurry little pic of a "mocha service" (it looks just like a tea set to me, but what do I know?) of a design so unusual, so lovely, that I just sat and stared at it... and I do NOT normally have any interest in porcelain unless it's in animal form. Luckily, the website for the place that sells them was included... and they've got a pic, a far better one than in the article
http://www.neuegalerie.org/data/databases/neuegalerie_0363/widgets/neuegalerie_department_item_c/00/00/00/70/picture/original.jpg
Isn't it GORGEOUS? My 1st thought was that it was like something Dr. Seuss would have made, if he did stuff in black and white rather than in vivid colors; it made me realize consciously that his forms tend to have a distinct organicness to them, which I find appealing in art and design as a whole... did that come in part from my love of his books as a child? Hmmmmmmmmm... Anyways, when I looked closely at the only thing in the Vogue pic that's really in focus, the cup and saucer, I saw that the saucer is actually a flower; this led to me seeing that the "mocha pot" is a gourd, and the sugar bowl is an apple. Only the very edge of the creamer is visible in the magazine photo, but I assumed it was cool too, and I was right; the online pic clearly shows it as being modeled after the opening of a pitcher plant.
The story would have ended there, and not gone beyond my finding something intensely visually pleasing, but Vogue described the service as "a reproduction of a Secessionist original," which made me think that there might be more goodies like this, so I did a little research on that term, and on the designer, Josef Hoffmann. It turns out that "Secessionist" just means the Austrian version of Art Nouveau, which was basically design based on plant forms; Hoffmann is one of the big names associated with it, but sadly, none of the other creations of his that I was able to find photos of had anything like the impact on me that the mocha service did, nor did any other Secessionist pieces... most of it didn't appeal to me at all, in fact. Oh well.
There was a tiny mystery that I discovered in my research; the Neue Galerie website places the creation of the mocha service at about 1925, at which time Art Deco was already in full swing in Europe (but not yet in the USA, oddly enough)... is the date significantly off, or did Hoffmann just feel the urge to make one final, extreme stab at Art Nouveau? I don't suppose I'll ever know, but it doesn't really matter; he elevated those porcelain receptacles to art, and they've entered the list of things I'll get if I ever win the lottery.
It's interesting to me to learn that my preference for "organic" forms extends beyond my passion for mid-century design (the term they used for their flowing, curvy shapes was "biomorphic"), which featured things like amoebic tables and non-rectangular couches
http://www.designboom.com/portrait/noguchi/furniture.html
and doubly interesting to see where some of the influence of that era undoubtedly came from. This takes me back to Seuss' art again, where nothing has a hard edge or a 90 degree angle, where everything from a car to a house looks like it might have grown in an enchanted and slightly warped forest; his art, like mid-century design, creates a vision of a world very different than the cold, sharp, metallic modern one we all inhabit... even though many of the latter things are still seen as "futuristic" a half century or more after they were created. It'd be interesting to see a psychological analysis of the preference for this stuff, given the unrelenting rectangularity of American culture, wouldn't it?
The older I get, the more "visual" I get, the more passionate I get about the artistry of the things that catch my eye, and the more cohesive my visual preferences become; I can only hope that some day I, although possessing no talent whatsoever for art in any form, find something to DO with my "vision"... although, I've gotta say, it's sort of weird to be constantly torn between being a geek, a mystic, and an interior decorator.
http://www.neuegalerie.org/data/databases/neuegalerie_0363/widgets/neuegalerie_department_item_c/00/00/00/70/picture/original.jpg
Isn't it GORGEOUS? My 1st thought was that it was like something Dr. Seuss would have made, if he did stuff in black and white rather than in vivid colors; it made me realize consciously that his forms tend to have a distinct organicness to them, which I find appealing in art and design as a whole... did that come in part from my love of his books as a child? Hmmmmmmmmm... Anyways, when I looked closely at the only thing in the Vogue pic that's really in focus, the cup and saucer, I saw that the saucer is actually a flower; this led to me seeing that the "mocha pot" is a gourd, and the sugar bowl is an apple. Only the very edge of the creamer is visible in the magazine photo, but I assumed it was cool too, and I was right; the online pic clearly shows it as being modeled after the opening of a pitcher plant.
The story would have ended there, and not gone beyond my finding something intensely visually pleasing, but Vogue described the service as "a reproduction of a Secessionist original," which made me think that there might be more goodies like this, so I did a little research on that term, and on the designer, Josef Hoffmann. It turns out that "Secessionist" just means the Austrian version of Art Nouveau, which was basically design based on plant forms; Hoffmann is one of the big names associated with it, but sadly, none of the other creations of his that I was able to find photos of had anything like the impact on me that the mocha service did, nor did any other Secessionist pieces... most of it didn't appeal to me at all, in fact. Oh well.
There was a tiny mystery that I discovered in my research; the Neue Galerie website places the creation of the mocha service at about 1925, at which time Art Deco was already in full swing in Europe (but not yet in the USA, oddly enough)... is the date significantly off, or did Hoffmann just feel the urge to make one final, extreme stab at Art Nouveau? I don't suppose I'll ever know, but it doesn't really matter; he elevated those porcelain receptacles to art, and they've entered the list of things I'll get if I ever win the lottery.
It's interesting to me to learn that my preference for "organic" forms extends beyond my passion for mid-century design (the term they used for their flowing, curvy shapes was "biomorphic"), which featured things like amoebic tables and non-rectangular couches
http://www.designboom.com/portrait/noguchi/furniture.html
and doubly interesting to see where some of the influence of that era undoubtedly came from. This takes me back to Seuss' art again, where nothing has a hard edge or a 90 degree angle, where everything from a car to a house looks like it might have grown in an enchanted and slightly warped forest; his art, like mid-century design, creates a vision of a world very different than the cold, sharp, metallic modern one we all inhabit... even though many of the latter things are still seen as "futuristic" a half century or more after they were created. It'd be interesting to see a psychological analysis of the preference for this stuff, given the unrelenting rectangularity of American culture, wouldn't it?
The older I get, the more "visual" I get, the more passionate I get about the artistry of the things that catch my eye, and the more cohesive my visual preferences become; I can only hope that some day I, although possessing no talent whatsoever for art in any form, find something to DO with my "vision"... although, I've gotta say, it's sort of weird to be constantly torn between being a geek, a mystic, and an interior decorator.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
A surreal day
Our latest Hitchcockian plague of vermin has been fruit flies; we were assuming that they kept coming in every time we bought fruit... until I happened to be standing nearby when my husband opened a rarely-used kitchen cabinet, and saw, to my utter revulsion, that there was a plastic bag in there that was FILLED with the bugs. It turned out to have fruit in it, or the rotted remains thereof, that my husband had stuck in there for no reason he could recall sometime in the past and promptly forgotten; the flies had been living and breeding in it ever since. He took the bag outside and dumped it in the trash, and now the lengthy process of taking everything out of the cabinet, sterilizing it all (to eliminate poop and eggs), and then scrubbing the shelves and other surfaces before putting it all back, is under way; I wish I could believe that he's learned something about how to handle fruit from all of this...
Our new possum showed up again tonight; this may be the tiniest, daintiest, and prettiest possum that ever lived... and I saw testicles on HIM today, so we've been fooled by yet another wild animal as to its gender. He felt relaxed enough to walk around with his tail up rather than tucked down, and to sit near the door, and in both positions the much-lighter fur over the little male protrusions was clearly visible; my husband thinks it's hilarious that I'm lying on the floor examining possum genitals through the glass door, but we DO kinda have to know, so there's no way around it. For the 1st time, the little male ate with another of our marsupial friends; it was the female, and unlike the way she treats the other males, she showed no hint of aggression towards him, even though he ate nose to nose with her, and then gave her bottom a few tentative sniffs... which makes me wonder if she's going to go for this attractive newcomer rather than the larger, more familiar, but less lovely suitors. Regardless of what she prefers, though, I'm betting that the 3 males will run her ragged come mating season.
I got a package today containing 3 Christmas figurines that I'd won on eBay and intended to give to my mother next Christmas (yes, I really DO plan gifts that far ahead); my husband loudly protested the idea of giving a particular one of them up, insisting that we keep it for our own display... a MAN, one who started out with no more love of the cute than any other straight male, pleading for us to not give up an anthropomorphic critter doodad, can you believe it? (Yes, I agreed to keep it; my mother will never know it was originally meant for her.)
The less sleep I get, the more my waking life seems to take on dream logic...
Our new possum showed up again tonight; this may be the tiniest, daintiest, and prettiest possum that ever lived... and I saw testicles on HIM today, so we've been fooled by yet another wild animal as to its gender. He felt relaxed enough to walk around with his tail up rather than tucked down, and to sit near the door, and in both positions the much-lighter fur over the little male protrusions was clearly visible; my husband thinks it's hilarious that I'm lying on the floor examining possum genitals through the glass door, but we DO kinda have to know, so there's no way around it. For the 1st time, the little male ate with another of our marsupial friends; it was the female, and unlike the way she treats the other males, she showed no hint of aggression towards him, even though he ate nose to nose with her, and then gave her bottom a few tentative sniffs... which makes me wonder if she's going to go for this attractive newcomer rather than the larger, more familiar, but less lovely suitors. Regardless of what she prefers, though, I'm betting that the 3 males will run her ragged come mating season.
I got a package today containing 3 Christmas figurines that I'd won on eBay and intended to give to my mother next Christmas (yes, I really DO plan gifts that far ahead); my husband loudly protested the idea of giving a particular one of them up, insisting that we keep it for our own display... a MAN, one who started out with no more love of the cute than any other straight male, pleading for us to not give up an anthropomorphic critter doodad, can you believe it? (Yes, I agreed to keep it; my mother will never know it was originally meant for her.)
The less sleep I get, the more my waking life seems to take on dream logic...
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Today I saw...
Did you know that you can get M&M's with custom messages on them, in colors of your choice? Check it out:
http://shop2.mms.com/customprint/index.asp#
They're expensive, but if you can afford them they'd be a good way to impress your party guests. I'd be interested to know how they chose the colors they offer; what made them decide on 3 shades of green, but only 1, very muted, purple... and on what planet do they think they'll sell the GRAY ones?!! Can you imagine eating GRAY candy?!! :-O
Our beta male possum showed up with a huge patch of fur ripped out of his shoulder; the skin's only scraped a little, but it still looks awful, and he's also scraped up on his nose and around one eye... clearly, there's some fighting going on, and we're getting worried about the alpha male, who hasn't come to eat yet. Since we've got 4 possums now, including the very new one that we haven't seen eating with any of the others so far (and that we think got chased a few days ago, since we heard "barking" and then she ran around our back yard like she was freaked out), we expect some more disruption... I just hope none of them gets seriously hurt.
I saw "Ringu 2"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=149121&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
which is vaguely the Japanese equivalent of "The Ring 2"... all of which (including the terrifying "The Ring") are based on the original "Ringu," I hasten to add-it's the Japanese movie that started it all, although it's very different from American horror movies. I wish they'd done dubbed versions of the "Ringus," because it makes it impossible to get really drawn into the suspense when you're only halfway watching the movie because you're reading the subtitles. It's also distracting that so many aspects of how the movies are put together are different enough from what I'm used to from American movies for me to be aware of them; the suspense-building music is absent, there's no sex, little or no actual violence is shown, and the women are astonishingly demure, speaking practically in whispers, almost never screaming despite it being a HORROR movie... but what seemed the oddest to me was the way they were dressed. In an American movie, there's a minimum level of hotness that even minor characters are expected to have, but the women in "Ringu 2," whether with speaking parts or just extras in the crowd, are all swathed in sober, conservative outfits, such that the only female flesh in the entire movie was the bare knees of a few schoolgirls, and not even they wear any real color. The main character, played by pop star Miki Nakatani, appears in EVERY scene with at least 2 layers of clothing on her upper body; collared shirts buttoned to the throat, and either a cardigan also buttoned all the way up or a sweater vest with a high neckline, all in dark neutral colors. She also wears, in every scene, big, shapeless below-knee skirts in dark, dowdy prints, thick, opaque black tights, and plain, flat black shoes... can you imagine the lead actress in an AMERICAN film looking like that in even ONE scene, unless her character was part of some fanatical religious group?
Remember that old beer ad that had the punchline "Why are foreign movies always so... foreign?"? "Ringu 2," although it had some impressive moments, is mostly summed up by that line. Still, I'm sure I'll end up seeing "Ringu 0: Basudei"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=151791&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
eventually; if I can't develop an appreciation for foreign films from those made by the man who pioneered the brilliant "ring concept," Hideo Nakata, I'll probably never "get" them, and I think I'm old enough now that I should be able to embrace... whatever it is that people see in movies they have to half-watch while reading subtitles (I think people in non-English-speaking countries must have a much easier time trying to watch American movies; with all the sex, fights, sex, explosions, sex, car chases, and sex, they don't NEED many subtitles). Can I count the claymation masterpieces of Nick Park (the creator of Wallace and Gromit)
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/LoadActorDetail.action?channel=Movies&subChannel=sub&listID=998719248&displayBoxArt=true
as foreign cinema and just call it good, lol?
http://shop2.mms.com/customprint/index.asp#
They're expensive, but if you can afford them they'd be a good way to impress your party guests. I'd be interested to know how they chose the colors they offer; what made them decide on 3 shades of green, but only 1, very muted, purple... and on what planet do they think they'll sell the GRAY ones?!! Can you imagine eating GRAY candy?!! :-O
Our beta male possum showed up with a huge patch of fur ripped out of his shoulder; the skin's only scraped a little, but it still looks awful, and he's also scraped up on his nose and around one eye... clearly, there's some fighting going on, and we're getting worried about the alpha male, who hasn't come to eat yet. Since we've got 4 possums now, including the very new one that we haven't seen eating with any of the others so far (and that we think got chased a few days ago, since we heard "barking" and then she ran around our back yard like she was freaked out), we expect some more disruption... I just hope none of them gets seriously hurt.
I saw "Ringu 2"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=149121&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
which is vaguely the Japanese equivalent of "The Ring 2"... all of which (including the terrifying "The Ring") are based on the original "Ringu," I hasten to add-it's the Japanese movie that started it all, although it's very different from American horror movies. I wish they'd done dubbed versions of the "Ringus," because it makes it impossible to get really drawn into the suspense when you're only halfway watching the movie because you're reading the subtitles. It's also distracting that so many aspects of how the movies are put together are different enough from what I'm used to from American movies for me to be aware of them; the suspense-building music is absent, there's no sex, little or no actual violence is shown, and the women are astonishingly demure, speaking practically in whispers, almost never screaming despite it being a HORROR movie... but what seemed the oddest to me was the way they were dressed. In an American movie, there's a minimum level of hotness that even minor characters are expected to have, but the women in "Ringu 2," whether with speaking parts or just extras in the crowd, are all swathed in sober, conservative outfits, such that the only female flesh in the entire movie was the bare knees of a few schoolgirls, and not even they wear any real color. The main character, played by pop star Miki Nakatani, appears in EVERY scene with at least 2 layers of clothing on her upper body; collared shirts buttoned to the throat, and either a cardigan also buttoned all the way up or a sweater vest with a high neckline, all in dark neutral colors. She also wears, in every scene, big, shapeless below-knee skirts in dark, dowdy prints, thick, opaque black tights, and plain, flat black shoes... can you imagine the lead actress in an AMERICAN film looking like that in even ONE scene, unless her character was part of some fanatical religious group?
Remember that old beer ad that had the punchline "Why are foreign movies always so... foreign?"? "Ringu 2," although it had some impressive moments, is mostly summed up by that line. Still, I'm sure I'll end up seeing "Ringu 0: Basudei"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=151791&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
eventually; if I can't develop an appreciation for foreign films from those made by the man who pioneered the brilliant "ring concept," Hideo Nakata, I'll probably never "get" them, and I think I'm old enough now that I should be able to embrace... whatever it is that people see in movies they have to half-watch while reading subtitles (I think people in non-English-speaking countries must have a much easier time trying to watch American movies; with all the sex, fights, sex, explosions, sex, car chases, and sex, they don't NEED many subtitles). Can I count the claymation masterpieces of Nick Park (the creator of Wallace and Gromit)
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/LoadActorDetail.action?channel=Movies&subChannel=sub&listID=998719248&displayBoxArt=true
as foreign cinema and just call it good, lol?
Monday, December 26, 2005
Christmas '05 report
First and worst, the tree didn't get finished until after dinner... an all time low. We did, however, get the stockings up last night, and I had my seasonal pillows for the 1st time in about 5 years thanks to enough junk being taken to storage for me to reach them, so it sort of balanced out. I've got a bunch of other display items that didn't get put out yet, that I haven't seen in 2 years because they didn't make it out LAST year either, and, much as I dislike the idea of putting up more decorations AFTER Christmas, I may do it just to remind me of what I've got... it could save me a fortune on eBay.
Speaking of which; there are a couple of items that'd normally be beyond my price range whose auctions are ending in the next few days, and with so many people still busy with holiday stuff, not to mention out of $, I may have a chance at getting 'em... keep your fingers crossed for me.
We had an unusually good Christmas dinner, not because of the food, but because we watched one of our favorite movies as we ate, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=111116&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
This giant among classics was very advanced for 1967; the central plot is that the daughter of liberal, wealthy white parents brings home a black man and announces her intention to marry him. An interesting sideline is that the person who's by far the most upset is their black maid, Tillie (played by the incomparable Isabel Sanford, aka Louise "Weezy" Jefferson from "The Jeffersons"), and the funniest line in the movie is from her; she marches into the room where John (played by Sidney Poitier, ahhhhhhhhhhhh) is changing clothes, and begins to take him to task for, as she thinks, trying to pull one over on "her" family, with the best part of her rant being, as best as I could type with her talking so fast, "I brought up that child from a baby in her cradle, and ain't nobody gonna bring in any trouble here while I'm watching, and I'm watching you, and if you bring any trouble in here you're like to find out what 'black power' REALLY means!!"... all said with great vehemence right in his face while he cowers in fear, lol. If you've never seen this movie, I highly recommend it.
My final thing to report is; I wasn't expecting to get any gifts, since my husband and I have long since ceased to bother, but I got one anyways. It was 4:30AM, long after any possums usually come, so I hadn't replenished their food, and was in fact closing things down, when our original and still favorite possum showed up; while he ate the little bit of fruit that was left, my husband handed me some luncheon meat to see if I could toss it out without scaring our baby off. He didn't run away, and didn't seem afraid at all as he started picking up the tidbits, so I was emboldened to hold a big piece out and start coaxing him to come and take it; for the 1st time EVER, he approached, sniffed, his little pink nose brushed up against the meat... and then he chickened out and withdrew. Yeah, that was disappointing, but the fact that he ALMOST managed it, that he overcame his fear to the point where he was close enough to have taken food from me, was a HUGE thrill; it should just be a matter of time now before he DOES stay brave and let me hand-feed him, and that knowledge is making this the most exciting holiday season in a long time.
I know that isn't what most people'd call a great Christmas, but it was pretty good by my standards; I hope that whatever YOU did made you and your loved ones happy, and that you're viewing the approaching new year with the same optimism that I am.
Speaking of which; there are a couple of items that'd normally be beyond my price range whose auctions are ending in the next few days, and with so many people still busy with holiday stuff, not to mention out of $, I may have a chance at getting 'em... keep your fingers crossed for me.
We had an unusually good Christmas dinner, not because of the food, but because we watched one of our favorite movies as we ate, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?movieID=111116&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Cast
This giant among classics was very advanced for 1967; the central plot is that the daughter of liberal, wealthy white parents brings home a black man and announces her intention to marry him. An interesting sideline is that the person who's by far the most upset is their black maid, Tillie (played by the incomparable Isabel Sanford, aka Louise "Weezy" Jefferson from "The Jeffersons"), and the funniest line in the movie is from her; she marches into the room where John (played by Sidney Poitier, ahhhhhhhhhhhh) is changing clothes, and begins to take him to task for, as she thinks, trying to pull one over on "her" family, with the best part of her rant being, as best as I could type with her talking so fast, "I brought up that child from a baby in her cradle, and ain't nobody gonna bring in any trouble here while I'm watching, and I'm watching you, and if you bring any trouble in here you're like to find out what 'black power' REALLY means!!"... all said with great vehemence right in his face while he cowers in fear, lol. If you've never seen this movie, I highly recommend it.
My final thing to report is; I wasn't expecting to get any gifts, since my husband and I have long since ceased to bother, but I got one anyways. It was 4:30AM, long after any possums usually come, so I hadn't replenished their food, and was in fact closing things down, when our original and still favorite possum showed up; while he ate the little bit of fruit that was left, my husband handed me some luncheon meat to see if I could toss it out without scaring our baby off. He didn't run away, and didn't seem afraid at all as he started picking up the tidbits, so I was emboldened to hold a big piece out and start coaxing him to come and take it; for the 1st time EVER, he approached, sniffed, his little pink nose brushed up against the meat... and then he chickened out and withdrew. Yeah, that was disappointing, but the fact that he ALMOST managed it, that he overcame his fear to the point where he was close enough to have taken food from me, was a HUGE thrill; it should just be a matter of time now before he DOES stay brave and let me hand-feed him, and that knowledge is making this the most exciting holiday season in a long time.
I know that isn't what most people'd call a great Christmas, but it was pretty good by my standards; I hope that whatever YOU did made you and your loved ones happy, and that you're viewing the approaching new year with the same optimism that I am.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Christmas!! :-)
If you're reading this on Christmas day, you'll have seen a nifty Java window pop up to wish you season's greetings; it's set up to only show once a day per person, so if you want to take a 2nd look you'll need to delete the cookies, which should be listed for my URL in your cookie folder... and if you missed it entirely, don't fret, because I'll do it again for New Year's. I have nothing exciting to report about the installation of the code, for once, because it went perfectly the 1st time; a true Christmas miracle.
I've combed the internet to find the funniest Christmas e-cards, and these are the winners:
http://www.perfectgreeting.com/index.cfm?action=view&id=4162&scid=10446
http://www.perfectgreeting.com/index.cfm?action=view&id=8615&scid=10446
Warning, GROSS: http://websols.com/cgi-bin/ecards/upcardme.cgi?step=1&pic=Seasons/184941639.jpg
My final gift to you is a hilarious spoof on one of our most beloved Christmas songs, "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland"; here's the tune if you're not familiar with it
http://thomas-distributing.com/midi/christmas/wondrlan2.mid
and here's the spoof lyrics... brace yourself:
Walkin' 'Round in Women's Underwear (to be sung to the tune of "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland")
Lacy things... wife is missin'
Didn't ask... her permission
I look quite a sight
In corsets so tight
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
In her drawer... was a teddy
Little straps... like spaghetti
Its red is so bright
I'm sexy all night
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
In the office there's a guy called Norman,
He prefers to dress like Murphy Brown.
He'll say, "Are you ready?", I'll say, "Whoa, man!"
"Let's wait until our wives are out of town!"
Later on... if you wanna
We can dress... like Madonna
With falsies so large
We'll get quite a charge
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
Lacy things... wife is missin'
Didn't ask... her permission
I look quite a sight
In corsets so tight
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
You can find an mp3 of a different version of this song here
http://x802.putfile.com/videos/b2-34718572783.mp3
lol
MERRY CHRISTMAS!! XO
I've combed the internet to find the funniest Christmas e-cards, and these are the winners:
http://www.perfectgreeting.com/index.cfm?action=view&id=4162&scid=10446
http://www.perfectgreeting.com/index.cfm?action=view&id=8615&scid=10446
Warning, GROSS: http://websols.com/cgi-bin/ecards/upcardme.cgi?step=1&pic=Seasons/184941639.jpg
My final gift to you is a hilarious spoof on one of our most beloved Christmas songs, "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland"; here's the tune if you're not familiar with it
http://thomas-distributing.com/midi/christmas/wondrlan2.mid
and here's the spoof lyrics... brace yourself:
Walkin' 'Round in Women's Underwear (to be sung to the tune of "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland")
Lacy things... wife is missin'
Didn't ask... her permission
I look quite a sight
In corsets so tight
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
In her drawer... was a teddy
Little straps... like spaghetti
Its red is so bright
I'm sexy all night
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
In the office there's a guy called Norman,
He prefers to dress like Murphy Brown.
He'll say, "Are you ready?", I'll say, "Whoa, man!"
"Let's wait until our wives are out of town!"
Later on... if you wanna
We can dress... like Madonna
With falsies so large
We'll get quite a charge
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
Lacy things... wife is missin'
Didn't ask... her permission
I look quite a sight
In corsets so tight
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear
Walkin' 'round in women's underwear.
You can find an mp3 of a different version of this song here
http://x802.putfile.com/videos/b2-34718572783.mp3
lol
MERRY CHRISTMAS!! XO
