International Rescue

The cousin/roommate and I rented "Not Only, But Also" from Netflix and have been watching this over and over for the past 4 days. I pee my pants every time.

God is Great, God is Good

Now we thank Him for Peter Windsor:

Windsor: USF1 about taking America to F1.
Tue 24 Feb, 02:09 PM

Peter Windsor, co-principal of the nascent USF1 operation that has been making headlines of late, insists that Formula One needs to return to the United States, and that his team can help the process.

Speaking to Crash.net, the former Williams team manager admitted that the sport was lacking a vital component having lost both the US and Canadian grands prix in recent years, and insisted that there was a large fanbase that would welcome it back should the situation be reversed in coming seasons.

"I think F1 needs the USA, because it's a huge market for every company that's in F1 - it's the world's biggest market, and still the world's most powerful economy," he pointed out, "As for a US Grand Prix, I think that there will be one in the future, and maybe we will play a small part in regenerating some of that interest in getting a race going here.

"But, ultimately, our mantra is not to try and convert America to F1 - we're trying to take America to F1, rather than take F1 to the United States. We're not trying to convert NASCAR fans to F1, and we never will because it's much too big, but I think that there are a lot of F1 fans in the United States and they will really get behind this team.

"The interest we've had since the news on this has leaked out - and not by us, I have to say - has been absolutely fantastic. We have been inundated with support, goodwill, people applying for jobs... We've had a million hits on a dormant website that doesn't have anything more than a logo on it, that's a million hits in three days, and it just shows how much interest there is in having an American F1 team."

Okay, so I haven't applied for a job YET, but this is totally amazing! Peter Windsor is my interview hero ("Alonso, it looked like you deliberately held Hamilton up in the pits. Tell us what happened.") and I would intern, make coffee, type travel itineraries, whatever he wanted just to be part of this. This is bigger even (yes, sorry) than the presidential campaign.

Yep, I said it.

Who says yoga isn't educational?

What I learned today:

1. canary yellow tights and blue running shorts don't look good together
2. there is a right way and a wrong way to wear leg warmers (and I mean there's a top and a bottom -- all other rights/wrongs are, I would hope, obvious)
3. if you're a boy you can yoga in your boxer shorts and no one notices until you put on your pants
4. it's poor yoga etiquette to laugh when the guy next to you farts while "going up the wall", but holding it in creates a domino effect

Dude! I saw a Super Le Tour 12.2 today. I curse those effers who stole our camera. I am in love, love, love. (sorry Peugeot.)

The Neffring Gets Some Payback

In honor of our getting Enter the Dragon on BluRay, here is a classic scene from that talented and versatile actor, John Saxon. One day the The Six Million Dollar Man will be on dvd and our collection will be complete. Oh wait, we still need Battle Beyond the Stars.

Is that neffring wearing Nikes?

Economics Schmeconomics

I feel like these past 2 weeks have been nonstop running around and all just inside my head. I've got library books, but I really don't remember when they were checked out and I don't think I've even read any of them yet. Maybe I have ... that one there looks familiar. I swear that every day is Monday to me. I don't know why, but we'll be at the market or I'll be sitting in the Documentary Film class and I'll suddenly freak out and think "I forgot to put the trash out!" and it's, like, Wednesday or something. Veda's cat igloo is always full of treasures, which she used to be proud of and offended when they were removed. Now she's always in my dish to clean it, mwaowing on my chest in the middle of the night.

But I'm keepin' up on Facebook though, huh? Yeah. That fecking thing is like a Christmas toy. The kids are done playing with it and now the adults have taken it over and one day we'll break it and have to hide it under the family room couch. I honestly, honestly, have no idea what to do with the drink requests. I click on it and some box pops up and asks me do I want to run some chingadera and I don't want to run a bunch of random crap on my emachine so I just let the requests build up and sit there.

So I guess it's more like grandma's taken it over and she can't drive stick.

But the term is closing soon and I won't have to figure out the marginal propensity to consume anymore and I can get on with real work, like taking that Samurai in Film class.

And I have to call Kelly back -- I was moving a friend Saturday and today I'm at school and I haven't reloaded the cell phone because I keep forgetting my pin number which is somewhere at home under those library books.

fahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I'm sitting in the student union listening to girls talk about "Friends" the same way we used to talk about "The Brady Bunch" and it's made another gray hair come out of my head.

She's Just Not That Into It

So, yeah ... not much going on, but compelled to blog anyway. Why? Why?

I can't get my head around this paper for the documentary class. Maybe because I'm trying to write poetry at the same time (it's got to be funny --- no, wait, maudlin --- no, wait, everyone writes maudlin poetry -- oh, God! What do I do?) and come up with an argument in favor of online libel law.

The cousin/roommate is having cereal for dinner because I can't even scrape it together enough to make mac and cheese. Here is where I'm thankful for not having children, by the way. Not that I'm not generally thankful for it, especially when I want to go to bed early or when I want to swear at drivers on the road (not that having kids ever stopped my mom), but now I'm especially thankful because I'm just not into the whole dinner-makin' thing. I don't know how people have kids, but then I'm not sure how anyone goes to college right after high school and actually learn anything. In between the drinking and the pot smoking how the hell do they do it?

Man I miss drinking and pot smoking...

That said another week is starting and it's tipping into the second half of the term, so it's almost over. I can almost watch movies again -- provided they get returned at some point from the Eugene PD.

That is all. (Is the cousin/roommate watching Gallipoli? I love that movie... just the thing to make me feel better)

This Just In!

This is included in an email sent to every student in the documentary film class:

I don't see a board up this week. Is there any papers due.
Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.

God bless the education system.

poetry corner

I'm sitting.
I'm sitting outside
In the sun
It's 50, but
not very cold
now.
I'm graduating.
I'm graduating in June
and I can sleep tonight
Except
I have to take Macroeconomics.
I have to take Macroeconomics GRADED.
I'm sitting
outside
in the sun.

(Just overheard here in the amphitheatre: "Michael Phelps Takes Bong Hit for Jesus" -- I love college.)

The sun came out. I rode the bike (soooooooo sore). Sat outside.

Over it.

Senioritis claims another victim

I can't scrape it together this term. Maybe because it's cold. Maybe because it's another crack at Economics. Maybe it's the poetry class ("use at least one metaphor and one simile and no rhyming!"). I don't know. Alls I knows is I want out of the place. I want done. I want to starting paying it off and move on with my life.

The kids irritate me. The professors irritate me (okay, it's only one of them irritates me right now, but still). I can't hang around there anymore without going mad.

Speaking of, watched part of the first season of Mad Men this weekend -- not much help when you've got a paper proposal due, but you've got to take breaks, right? I like it, but I'm not sure I love it yet. But, there you are, I'm completely drained of giving a .... anymore.

I think I have SAD. I wonder if I can get a grant because of it...

All Praise Eurovision

So thanks to John Fenn, I've not officially caught Eurovision fever. I was avoiding it, but I just had to read more about that UK song and then the Bulgarians, who I love, are narrowing down and Norway's at a choice of 2 and Iceland ... I mean, come ON how can you now choose "Lygin ein"? You can see snippets of past winners/not-so-winners here - www.eurovision.tv - but I think Father Ted should really have gone all the way in '95. (If it doesn't link in -- and it looks like it's being kiboshed a bit -- you can click here)

courtesy of the cousin/roommate

I can't believe they actually PAY me for this stuff

Today we got a letter from a guy in prison wanting a copy of everything he had purchased from the previous year, because someone had stolen it.

Here's his rap sheet:
1990-07-25 - POSS C/S HEROIN
1990-07-25 - BURG HABIT
1990-07-26 - POSS C/S HEROIN
1990-07-26 - BURG HABIT
1990-07-26 - THEFT O/750
2005-03-17 - POSS C/S COCAINE

***

Then I got barked at because someone wanted our phone number, then wanted to ask a question first, then needed more information on the question, then ended with "SO, are you going to give me the phone number?"

***

This was my favorite question of the day:
please explain how the dial complete hand soap pump works.I have trouble getting the pump to operate- very difficult to push down

A Whole New Me

Just like the old me since my Digital Freedom textbook claims that all bloggers are really 12 year-old girls. Not that I want to repeat junior high, but it made me feel pretty good to be that young again.

So I called the cops yesterday and they say that they can't release my suitcase yet because it was part of a MASSIVE CRIME SCENE with all kind of other stuff. They're dusting it for prints or CSI-ing it or whatever they do with stuff nowadays. I'm supposed to get a call when they're done going through everything. "Don't get your hopes up," she tells me; "but there's A LOT of stuff."

God bless America.

Speaking of, I would just like to say how really great it is to have the Obamas representing our country. We were watching the Inaugural Balls last night and they reminded me of wedding videos with their cute way of dancing and talking to one another in their public privacy.

I find it hard to believe that hate can possibly exist in this country now. Good trumps. Get used to it.

A Whole New U

So, yeah, we watched "Space Seed" last night because we're nerds. It's just the way it works out. Wrath of Khan isn't on BluRay yet so the verdict is still out on whether or not that's really his chest. Those who say "yes" feel pretty strong about it, but I just don't know...

We have started the rebuilding process. I've ordered Om Shanti Om from Amazon and we have a new PlayStation. The phone helper at EA Games was really sweet in helping us replace the Rock Band 2 dongles that were stolen with the console. You can't play the guitar without a dongle, just ask Pete Townsend. Unfortunately you can't buy dongles, so we had to cry to EA Games and they were very, very helpful, Gar bless 'em.

But it was hard going through the BluRay selection at Target because it kept reminding me of what was stolen and, more important, of what I forgot to put on the police report. How could I forget that we had the first season of the Dukes of Hazzard on dvd? Oh well, I guess it won't ever come back. And why would they take it? So random.

What will come back is my red suitcase. I didn't even know they took it, but how else would you carry all that stuff? It makes sense. It may have been used to steal from other people too. The cops found it on Saturday and called because my name is on the tag (way to think it through, thieves). It's been impounded, but I have to wait until tomorrow to find out if any of our listed stuff is at the station with it.

I'd really like to get the stuff back, but by Saturday we had kind of moved on, and this is a little bit of a setback. I just want to hire guard dogs and get on with my life.

Alora. Tomorrow is a new day and a new president and a new future and the past is the past. Tomorrow it'll all be okay.

Speaking of Khan....

Actor Ricardo Montalban Dies at 88

14 January 2009 2:28 PM, PST | From IMDb News

Ricardo Montalban, the dashing Mexican actor who gained fame for two iconic television roles -- that of the vengeful Khan in Star Trek and the mysterious Mr. Roark in Fantasy Island -- died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles; he was 88. No cause of death was given, though it was known that Montalban had suffered from complications after undergoing 9 1/2 hours of spinal surgery in 1993 to alleviate an injury he suffered in 1951 while filming the western Across the Wide Missouri. The surgery, however, did not resolve his medical problems, and he found himself primarily confined to a wheelchair. A career in Mexican films led to Hollywood and an MGM contract in 1946, and he was cast in a number of Esther Williams films (his American feature debut was in 1946's Fiesta opposite the swimming star) as well as westerns and dramas opposite such stars as Lana Turner and Jane Powell.

After leaving MGM in the mid-fifties, Montalban appeared on numerous television shows, though it was his singular turn as the villainous Khan Noonien Singh, one of a group of genetically engineered "supermen" in the "Space Seed" episode of Star Trek for which he became most remembered, and he reprised that role in the 1982 box office hit Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. By the time that film was released, Montalban had also become famous to a new generation of television viewers as the enigmatic Mr. Rourke, the host of the ABC Saturday night staple Fantasy Island (1978-1984), where he would preside over cautionary tales of those who wished to have their most desired fantasies fulfilled. (Around the same time, Montalban did a number of commercials for the Chrysler Cordoba, where his exhortations of the cars "rich Corinthian leather" would become an affectionate pop culture reference.)

After his role as Khan, Montalban continued to appear in television (most notably on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys) and in film (as the villain of the comedy The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!) until his surgery curtailed his acting career. Montalban continued to work, however, appearing in all three of the Spy Kids films and doing voice work for the television shows Kim Possible and Family Guy. Montalban's wife, Georgiana Young (the younger sister of actress Loretta Young) died in 2007; the two had been married since 1944 and had four children.

Not only, but also ...

Patrick McGoohan Dead At 80

14 January 2009 10:16 AM, PST

Dude. What a week and it's only Wednesday.

What and woe!

Mom just mailed me and said that Shah Rukh Khan was at the Golden Globes. I'm always the last to know...

Now that I'm done freaking out

Thank you all -- yes, we're safe-ish. Somewhat depressed and angry, but safe. Veda appears unscathed and remains cuddly.

So the cop finally came last night and took pictures and I was able to put things back and found my grandmother's anniversary ring at the bottom of my sock drawer. Maybe because the box was white, I don't know, but they skipped over it and it's going into a safe deposit box today along with my Social Security card (found safe, t'anks God) and my vehicle license.

Sure, a lot of stuff can be replaced -- although where we'll get another copy of Om Shanti Om is a mystery -- but a lot of it is just gone. My grandmother's grammar school graduation ring, some glassy gaudy costume jewelry that belonged to my great grandmother -- worthless to anyone else but me and I can't replace it. And we have to go to work today and that's really going to suck. We have to leave and get on with it all and lock down and that's just plain irritating.

Fuckers.

I've got a local game shop in town on the look out for our stuff (because, really, you're not going to find too many people trading in a Bollywood BluRay movie with a Formula 1 game) and I hope they call me before they call the cops. I'd like to go collect on it personally

with a baseball bat.

I can't believe they took a Starbucks card. That's so petty-weird.

And then the worst year got even worse

Thieves broke into the house. They stole the Playstation. They took all of our BluRays and all of our games. They took my great-grandmother's pearls. They took our camera. They took my grandmother's ruby and diamond ring that my grandfather gave her for their 50th wedding anniversary. They rifled through my underwear and pulled stuff out from under my bed. They went through my closet.

They took the Starbucks card my mom gave me for Christmas.

They let the cat out. She came back.

They left the computer. I had the mini Dell with me at school. They left the big TV and the Rock Band instruments.

They took away all of the sleep I was going to get tonight, tomorrow night and the next night and the next.