MeMe Hates The Homework. Me Do The MeMe Instead.

Four Jobs You've Had:
1. Internet Lackey
2. Marketing Lackey
3. Retail Bookstore Lackey
4. Corporate Toady

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:
(cah! only four? feck me ...)
1. The Seven Samurai
2. Wings of Desire
3. You Only Live Twice
4. Howard's End

Four Places You Have Lived:
(cah! only four?)
1. Eugene, OR
2. Los Angeles, CA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. The 5th Circle of Hell (wait, I've listed L.A. twice...)

Four Websites You Visit Daily:
1. email.uoregon.edu
2. imdb.com
3. nytimes.com
4. hasskiss.blogspot.com

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch:
1. Lost
2. Antiques Roadshow (it fascinates me; I really don't know why)
3. Mythbusters (okay! I know I say I don't like it because it's a boy show, but sometimes it's okay)
4. Most Haunted

Four of Your Favorite Foods:
1. Mal's "Shepherd's Pie" (it's actually Jacques Pepin's Gratin Parmentier)
2. oh! Mal also makes great bangers and mash
3. key lime pie from The Sweet Life
4. fried noodles at the little Vietnamese food place on West 11th

Four Albums You Can't Live Without:
1. RunRig "The Gaelic Collection" (shut up)
2. Mango "Come le Acqua" (I said, shut up)
3. Death Cab For Cutie "Plans"
4. David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust" (I'm a momma-poppa comin' for you)

Four Places You'd Rather Be:
1. Vegas, baby.
2. Paris was nice, for all it's adventures, so let's say Paris, France for #2
3. The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
4. The Tate Gallery, London

Four People Who Are Now Obligated To Do This On Their Blog:
1. You
2. You
3. You
4. And you -- the rest of you: thank you for coming out to the audition, but we won't be needing you today.

If you don't have a blog, you may speak freely about yourself on the comments. For those of you who have a blog and don't use it ... well ... I'm just sayin' ... you *could* ... you know ... use it ... n' stuff.

Booooooooooooo .... kinda

Having just gushed on and on about "The Constant Gardener" I'm a little irritated to see that the Academy didn't listen. Oh sure, Rachel Weisz gets a click -- for Supporting ... what the? How is that a supporting role? Or did they think she didn't stand a chance against Reese Witherspoon in the Actress category? -- but nothing for my boy, Ralph.

Not that I'm not pulling for "Brokeback Mountain" and all, because it looks really good and anything the teens snigger at during the preview is already a notch toward great, but I was hoping for more thrown the way of the Gardener.

And what's with "Crash" up there for Best Picture? I'd heard t'ings about it being really simple-minded to the point of insulting with the way they throw around stereotypes ... or am I thinking of the Cronenberg movie? That movie is effed-up. No one can make a picture of a book quite like Cronenberg, God love 'im. Those giant talking penises in "Naked Lunch" ... just crazy. Wouldn't it be great if Cronenberg wrote a screenplay for Brian De Palma? It could be my dream film with Kevin Costner and Julia Ormand and Charlton Heston. It can even be called "Crash" just to keep it in the film-family.

Don't even get me started on Keira Knightley.

Do it. Do it.

Okay, sure, I'm a movie snob. It happens. Last night I really wanted to see "King Kong" because it was a "King Kong" kind of night -- school was done, I didn't have any homework (at least not like I'd had the past few weeks), I wasn't going to work again until Sunday -- and I was in the mood to shell out the big bucks for the big picture. Instead I let the cousin/housemate talk me into going to the sticky-foot and paying $1.50 for "The Constant Gardener".

Go see it. And then see it again -- you can even rent it now, but if you have a sticky-foot in your area it's not only cheaper to see it on the big sticky-foot screen, but it's probably a lot better. There aren't special effects or anything, but I think the big screen is more likely to suck you than a rental would. The rental follow-up is really just to catch all the things you missed the first time around. Feckin' John le Carre, man ... he's fantastic. But, even more than the amazing story, is watching Ralph Fiennes. I like Rafe -- sure, he's got a gut in "Schindler's List," but then he can be pastel-pretty, like in "Quiz Show" and then go and lose his nose in "Harry Potter" -- but this movie proves how truly astounding he is. His first big moment, where you're stuck just looking at him, is one of the most amazing bits of acting I've ever seen, and he doesn't really do anything ... it's hard to explain. Just see it.

Do it. Do it now.

God is Love - Love is Blind - Ray Charles is Blind - Ray Charles is God

I was on the bus the other day with one of my instructors from last term -- Laura. She taught Comp. Lit and was the one that had us read books from the Caribbean (which was really good for the most part). She said that she'd had me marked for a Literature major, but I told her there was no money in that. When I tossed off my standard line about majoring in journalism so I could get a job at People, she went down the serious road: "Are you serious? Do you think a degree from UofO will help you with that? I mean, have you thought about how to get one of those jobs?"

Well, jaysis jaysis, people have those jobs now, don't they? So there must be a way to get one.

Which got me thinking ... oversimplifying prospects and then cluttering them later with analysis is the way I usually do everything. It's most likely the reason I'm still single. (i.e.: "There's got to be someone out there for me" ... to ... "So he says that we can go out sometime, but does he mean sometime soon or next week? Should I ask him? Or is that being too forward? But if I'm not forward is he going to lose interest ..." etc ...)

Which got me thinking ... maybe I should over-analyze first and get it out of the way.

Which got me thinking ... wait, I do that anyway. So maybe I should let go of the expectations and let it come naturally. Until the student loans come due and I find myself still working my crap job and still going to bed alone at 7:30 on a Friday night.

Which got me thinking of sleep.
Then thought became action.
Does this make me a Taoist?

Flushing the Books Down the Toi-Toi

"I know what you're thinking ... did he fire 6 shots or only 5? In the excitement I lost track myself..."
The boy's watching "Dirty Harry." I hate to say it, but it sounds pretty impressive coming through the stereo speakers.

So yesterday I dealt with failure. If I don't have an F on the Italian exam, then I'm pretty sure it's a mid to low D. I feel confident that the oral part is correct, but the rest of it was a complete mystery -- especially the essay about what Anna did all day (worth 24 points) using verbi reflessivi. Then, in history, the quiz was on 2 essays we were supposed to have read. What? We were supposed to read essays? I only saw the part about "bring your atlas." Mothercorker! I think I faked it well-enough and I got to sit next to Eli, the brilliant little 18 year-old Biochemestry major, so the sting wasn't too bad. I think I need to cut out some hours at work. It shouldn't be this hard to take 14 credits.

Upside: I think I've impressed the Writing instructor, I'm learning new moves in t'ai chi (and I was the only one in the class on Thursday, so I finally got the T'ai-Chi-Man talking ... he used to be a farmer and he has 2 kids), we're burning copies of "Throne of Blood" and "Night and the City," so I can relax with Richard Widmark and Toshiro Mifune any time I need to, and tonight Manny "PacMan"Pacquiao is fighting Erik "El Terrible" Morales. Will this balance out the failure? I sure hope so.

A Moment of Silence, Please

I'm not very good at math, but last term I had 17 credits and 30 hours of work. This term, I have 14 credits and 33 hours of work. Last term was difficult, but I managed to get homework done and watch "Lost" and do laundry on a fairly regular basis. I know it's only the first week, but the laundry is already stacking up, I'm only just now understanding that transitivo verbi hanno avere e intransitivo verbi hanno essere, except that I'm having trouble remembering how to conjugate avere and essere (tu .... erm ... sei?), and I missed "Lost" so I don't know Mr. Eko's back-story.

And this makes me cranky. So I'm taking my 10 minutes of free time (I have to go to work after this) to blog because blogging ... um ... does something to make me not cranky. I think.

This term's class assessment:
Italian 102 -- I like our instructor, Claudia, because she's good natured and has only lived in the US for 4 years, so she understands when we have trouble with Italian because she still has trouble with English. However, she seems to forget sometimes that we can't keep up with her and suddenly a flow of verbi comes rushing out ending with "bene?" and most of the time I can only reply "no. male. repititi?"

History 105 -- the worst. I don't like the professor (which doesn't matter because he seems to like himself enough for everyone) and being told on the first day "a lot of you don't know how to write because the computer does it for you now" really rubbed me the wrong way. Which leads me to...

Writing 122 -- this is going to be a challenge and I'm really looking forward to it. I feel a little cheated by Mike last term, because he was fooled by the prose and let me get away with a lot of weak argumentation. (Honestly, saying that James Ellroy used racial slurs in "LA Confidential" to make a point about seedy characters vs good characters ... I can't believe he bought that -- there are no good characters in "LA Confidential.") This new instructor, Matt, has already whittled the class in half by his first day speech of expectations (he ended each one with "if that doesn't sound like something you're interested in, I suggest that you drop this class") and the essays we're reading are much more in depth than Dave Barry cracking jokes about grammar usage. If I swing an A in this one, it's not going to be because I have a "great prose style", that's for sure.

Thanks Cranky Old Redneck

Stole this idea from someone else's blog (Cranky Old Redneck, to be precise).

Rollercoaster ... bah ...

Your Birthdate: July 20

You are a virtual roller coaster of emotions, and most people enjoy the ride. Your mood tends to set the tone of the room, and when you're happy, this is a good thing. When you get in a dark mood, watch out - it's very hard to get you out of it. It's sometimes hard for you to cheer up, and your gloom can be contagious. Your strength: Your warm heart Your weakness: Trouble controlling your emotions Your power color: Black Your power symbol: Musical note Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

On a side -old blog- note: had a dream last night that the BeeGees were staying at my parent's house over Christmas. Maurice lit a fire in the fireplace without opening the flue. He meant well, tho... In the same dream Jennifer Jason Leigh was the queen of some country and she kept bothering me with her belief in being "one of the people" while I tidied up the bathroom cupboards (she may have been of the people, but she was totally disorganized). If it wasn't for my warm heart...

Virtue-All Reality

On the side of this blog there is a link for the Haskes. The Haskes are people I stumbled across randomly one day last year, but the post (about a fight in the car) was just about the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I bookmarked them and checked in from time to time to see how things were going ... followed them through Steve's trip to France and Marigold's job changes ... and then one day the blog was gone, with a note stating that if you wanted to get to the new blog you had to email Marigold for the link. I sat at the desk for a good 20 minutes trying to decide if I wanted to email for that link. Who the hell am I? Just some random voyeur, really. I mean, honestly, I'm not family or friends; I'm just someone who popped in and read about their life, and that's kind of weird when seen from the other side. But I knew I would miss them, like family you only get to see at Christmas every 3 or 4 years, so I owned up to my randomness and emailed for the link. When she sent it I felt warm and fuzzy.

The new year for the Haskes has started off with a robbery and cancer. Which led to more obsessive analysis ... do I post my sympathies? And what the hell would I say anyway? It always rings kind of hollow to me when people say "I'll keep you in our prayers" -- although for a moment I considered dropping in at church and doing just that for the Haskes (and also because I'm supposed to be god-mother to my cousin's kids in April and I'm not entirely sure how the ceremony goes except for "Do you, Michael Corleone, reject Satan"). And now they're having a baby! Which is fantastic!

But I'm still feeling weird about posting a comment of congratulations because I don't really know them. So I'm posting it here in my somewhat bloggy shy way.

This has all reminded me of E.M. Forster:
I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it--and I'm sure I can't tell you whether the fate's good or evil. I don't die--I don't fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I'm just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which--thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you--is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before.

Dude, How About Some Golf?

This is where the cousin/roommate is spending the holidays.

Before he left he asked me what I wanted from Hawaii. I said Jin or Sawyer. This is as close as it gets. I think he'll be in town for Ana Lucia's court appearance though ...
Not guilty ... come onnnnn