January 2004 Archives
Mimi Smartypants wins:
What are Nora's favorite toys? Anything that is not a toy. The remote, the phone, the cat, the camera, pots and pans, tubes of hand lotion, my checkbook. She is also very fond of taking books off the shelves and crawling around with them. Yesterday she had a paperback copy of Existentialism and Human Emotions clutched in her grubby little fist, and she shrieked bloody murder when I tried to get her to release the Sartre.* In fact she would not relinquish it for any reason whatsoever, so it went in the crib with her for a nap. My baby's existence so totally precedes her essence.
*Oh man it would be so funny** if Clash of the Titans was reworked to be all about philosophers/phenomenologists. "Husserl! Release the Sartre!"
**Except that it wouldn't.
...if I didn't have a dog:
- Please leave that dead snail alone.
- Don't lick my eye!
- Must you lie right on my ribcage?
- I'd like it if you wouldn't claw my neck so much.
However, I would probably still have to say them if I had kids instead of a dog.
I know at least one person reading this is a sales/marketing professional, and undoubtedly a few more of you spend more time thinking about business than I do. So will someone please explain to me why comment spam on blogs is a good marketing strategy for casinos?
I'd like to know that the 90 "comments" I just spent an hour cleaning out of my blog at least would have had the potential to create a job or two if I'd been inclined to leave them there.
Mike Doughty makes my feet dance.
I got up at 4am on Thursday and sat through a two day conference in Houston so you didn't have to miss this comment:
Money isn't the elephant in the room. Money is the wooly mammoth wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt that is tied to the blimp that's on FIRE that's circling above us.
It was in reference to the Texas state budget, of course, and I could die happy today if I'd been the one to say it.
(I have not blogged much lately because everything on the right side of my body between my neck and fingertips is trying to kill me. Or force me to carve it out so it can pursue a more fulfilling destiny than being attached to my body. I can't tell which.)
Columbia House only sells 1 album I want to own. Does this make me alternative, or does it just make me old?
If anyone needs to know what a temporary Texas driver's license looks like, let me know. I'll fax over a copy.
(P.S. Be nice, no jokes about how I'm making the world a more dangerous place.)
Barring untoward incidents, tomorrow morning I take the road test for my first-ever driver's license. I am 29. I got my first permit when I was 17, and I have never had an actual license.
I wish the test were already over. I'm not nervous yet, but I know I will be tomorrow, and I hate that part and I want to skip it. The test only lasts about 15 minutes - less if you completely screw up - but I'd like to skip that too. I've wanted to skip every driving lesson I've had since I started learning how to do this, and every expensive lesson I've had since deciding I had to get this done before I turn 30.
But if I can get through that 15 minutes tomorrow morning without killing anyone or causing major property damage or doing something big and stupid or several trivial and stupid things that add up, I will have permission from the state of Texas to rent or buy a car. I will not get funny looks from bank personnel and other official entities because the plastic card I carry says "Identification Card" instead of "Driver's License." I will not feel awkward if someone leaves me in an illegally parked car while they run into a store because I know I can't move it while they're gone even if it's in the way.
I will just be a normal, ordinary grown-up.
It made my heart glad.
Last night I went to a bizarrely large building that's devoted to (mostly) adults having fun. Those of you who know me are aware that I'm generally against fun, so you may be wondering how this occurred. Those of you who know me are also aware that I have maintained what is practically a policy against video and computer games of any kind, so you may be doubly surprised to hear that I spent part of my time there using a plastic gun to shoot zombies on a screen, and quite enjoyed it.
How exactly did a nice non-hedonistic girl with a fear of new things end up in a place like this?
Honestly, I think it's because I was with someone who didn't know me. This makes a third episode since May where someone I only barely knew made a suggestion for an activity that folks who know me have been trained to never suggest...and then I didn't act out my usual automatic rejection of a new idea, because there weren't any expectations that I would. That's also how I ended up hiking 10 miles into the Grand Canyon two years ago: a person who didn't know me very well thought it would be fun and I decided to see what happened.
I've always thought of entrenched behavior patterns as a risk of romantic relationships, but apparently they're everywhere. So I just found my first New Year's Resolution for 2004: "Spend more time with strangers." Oh, wait, maybe it's actually "Try new things." Either way, might as well shake it up a bit. The worst that can happen (probably) is that I end up camping two nights in the Grand Canyon.
My final comment: it is so unfair that you lose points for shooting civilians. Everyone knows that they're probably infected already and will become zombies in short order - it's a public health measure to eliminate them.
Professional projectionists say screen size dictates proper bulb wattage, so the smaller the screen, the less bulb power is required to provide an adequately lit picture.
Problem is, most of the chain theaters -- those operated by Regal, Cinemark and AMC in Austin -- use extremely large screens in their multiplexes, possibly without proper bulb size or bulb output. Generally, larger multiplex screens demand at least a 3,000-watt bulb but should have a 4,000-watt bulb for an optimal picture.
Something I had never thought of complaining about - and how often does that happen?
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