This moment brought to you by Eyemasters

So due to the massive storms we had over the weekend, my apartment got very, very clean. BTW, it got clean because I was stuck at home most of Saturday because it was too dangerous/scary/freaky to go outside and I got bored and cleaned the place silly. It doesn't even look like my place it's so dang clean. But I cleaned to the extent that this morning I stumbled out of bed and could not find my glasses, as they had been moved -- inadvertantly -- from their usual resting place to somewhere mysterious to me during my mad cleaning frenzy.

My morning routine consists of the alarm going off (Sarah Brightman's "Harem Tour" CD) and I listen to the first three songs ("Kama Sutra", "Join Me" and "Imagination"). Then I literally roll out of bed (ouch!) and stumble into the kitchen where I put the kettle on. And then it's into the bathroom to brush my teeth and that's when I locate my glasses and put them on. And then, back to make the coffee.

Well, this morning, I stumbled around in a fuzzy haze, checking every possible location for my glasses. Now, I'm not terribly near-sighted. I can actually function quite well without any kind of corrective lense in the sense I can discern objects and have a vague idea of what they are. I can even read without glasses, no problem. However, I need glasses for driving as I'm unable to read street signs without and I also have a serious lack of depth perception and occasionally, I am unable to make out separate shapes if they are all jumbled up together. But. I digress.

So I'm running around looking for my glasses and time is running out. I haven't had my coffee, haven't eaten my bowl of Cheerios, or gotten dressed. After running over in my mind where my glasses must be, I decided that the most likely location was in the drawer in the bathroom. I kept opening the drawer and didn't see any glasses. I took some objects out -- box of Q-Tips, lotion, the occasional bottle of perfume, a wide assortment of lipsticks -- and peered in more closely, but still, nothing and by then, I was having a full-scale Seema Panic Attack (tm) (don't try this at home, kids!). Did I accidentally throw my glasses out in my feverish attempt to rid myself of the piles of paper I've accumulated since August?

Finally, in exasperation, I put my contacts in and armed with my mug of coffee, I continued the search. Only to find the glasses in the drawer, exactly where I had assumed they would be. (sigh). They were actually on top of my small jewelry box and without corrective lenses, I was unable to discern the shiny frames from the piles of necklaces and other assorted pretty objects.

***

In other news, I saw "Finding Nemo" yesterday. What a totally adorable and sweet movie! I love it! Ellen DeGeneres as Dory is a hoot. I recommend this movie to everyone and anyone. Very cute.

***

Also, to clarify in my below post, there is absolutely nothing wrong in using the first person POV -- I use it myself quite often and enjoy writing it, however, there are certain situations where another POV is probably better utilized. In the end, it really does come down to what works for the story and there are no hard-fast rules for writing, despite what people say and you'll never find two people who totally agree on anything.

In my muddled-headed way, what I was trying to say is that the following example isn't well-served by a first person POV:

The blood rushes out of my nose and I feel the world going dark. I smile one last time and then there is indeed darkness.

The narrator is dead. There is no one left to tell the story. First POV narrative would require the story to either end before the narrator died, or have someone else tell the story. Hopefully, using an example -- completely fictitious and made-up on the spur of the moment -- will clarify what I was trying to point out. As always, take anything I say with the proverbial grain of salt.

***

Also, this column is a good example of why I heart Ellen Goodman so much.

On writing

I was going to write up a post on self-editing and my great big epiphany last week that was mostly jemima's fault, but that I have yet to share with her or any of you. However, given the lateness of the hour and the relatively fluffiness of my brain that ensues as the clock approaches bedtime, I will instead discuss death and POV. There are two things I bet you never expected in the same sentence, huh?

Today I read an X-Files story where there was a lot of dying. When I say a lot of dying, I mean a lot. My issues with all of the dying and angst will probably fill another blog entry, but I mostly took issue with the perspective of one of the parts of the story. This was another one of those pieces where the POV changes from part to part; first it's Mulder's 3rd person narration, followed by Scully, then Skinner, and whoa, now we have Mulder's first person narration in the form of a journal, and so on so forth.

My issue is with first person narrative. There are some very good reasons to use first person. For instance, you can get inside of the head of the main character, look at things from his/her perspective, describe feelings and settings from one consistent POV. Some people think first person POV is relatively easier than the others to write because iit is possible to write the character from within rather than without. I don't have a firm opinion on what POV people should use in their stories -- whatever works best for the story you're telling and for the character who is telling that story, that's what I would recommend.

The only exception is if there is character death and the character dying is the first person narrator. If the character is telling the story from a retrospective, then okay, that'll probably work. But having the first person POV actively telling of the death of the narrator? That doesn't work so well. First of all, if the narrator is in the act of dying, who is telling the story? How in the very short time preceeding realization of death does the narrator manage to squeeze out all of his/hir story and then still have time and clarity of mind to talk about it while dying?

As with most things writing-wise, this is my personal opinion and I honestly don't think there's a wrong way or a right way to write anything, but some ways make more sense than others. If your main character is going to die at the end of the story, I would suggest a third person narrator or a telling "in retrospect."

Write in it

I'm still in serious disbelief over Virginia, but it's past my bedtime and I'm not sure I have anything coherent to say about that subject except I'm glad I don't live in Virginia (not that I live somewhere much better on the tolerance scale), and I've always been proud to hail from Vermont, home of civil unions.

Today's regularly scheduled blog entry is about writing, mostly because I realized that I'll find out tomorrow the results of a contest I entered back in February. I don't have high hopes at all because the story was mediocre at best, the writing fairly juvenile (compared to my style now), and the plot very weak; only Rocky's last minute suggestions made it a somewhat decent entry.

However, I'm now facing a June 15 deadline for another magazine. This one is called "Cafe Irreality" and it's dedicated to surreal fiction. I'm a huge fan of surreal fiction, ever since the summer I spent in Amherst reading nothing but South American writers and International Sudden Fiction (btw, I highly recommend the anthology to all of you -- it's a gorgeous collection of styles, voices, gimmicks, and the art of telling the very very short story. It's one of my all-time favorite books). So, back to the subject of surreal fiction. I always think this genre as the type of stories that would emerge if Dali used words, not paint. I have two stories already written and in need of editing and some revising, and I should make the June 15 deadline fairly easily.

Following on the steps of the June 15 deadline comes the October 1 deadline for SNW. Yes, I plan to enter SNW this year and I have a few ideas in mind. Only one, however, is completely formulated -- the other two are just a scene or two and I'm having a hard time spinning plot, conflict and resolution into 7,500 words. Still, the opportunity is too good to pass up and so I've decided to discipline myself and actually plan out two of the ideas I have and see what happens. Usually, the way I write is pure Napolean's Battle Plan: "We show up and then we see what happens." (Astute readers will recognize this line from one of my favorite "Sports Night" episodes and if you read that transcript -- and you really should -- the second part is my absolute favorite ep.). I'm curious to see if my stories turn out better if I inject organization and thought into them before the fact, rather than the whole "let's throw some ideas and words at the screen and see if something sticks!"

Yes, I'm horrified by my writing process as well.

I'm contemplating finding an other contest that will fit in nicely between the June 15 and October 1 deadlines. My goal is to enter at least four contests this year. That may not seem like a lot, but writing is not this thing you can do just by thinking you want to do it. It takes time, thought, and effort, and there's a lot of frustration to it. You have to think about character, about setting, plot, conflict, resolution, and even if you've got all of that, the muse may not cooperate. Or perhaps you write the whole thing and realize it just doesn't work and you have no idea why. Sometimes I push through that block and other times, I just let it go. So that's where I am right now -- I need one more publication to submit to before the end of the year in order to meet my resolution. If I can get 5 in, that'll be great.

And, on that note, good night all, good night moon.

Some links

Virginia has just passed a law that severely restricts the rights of homosexuals, come July, and it really makes me sick. There's more about the bill here and here. More indignation later.

Suffer the children

Link of the Day: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

So I was reading this article about homosexual marriage (link courtesy of jemima), and it occurred to me, from the POV of this article, that marriage is all about the children. In which case, if you do not plan to have children or cannot have children, you shouldn't be able to get married at all; a signed contract to reproduce ought to be a requirement before one marches up to the altar and swear eternal devotion to someone of the opposite sex who obviously shares this intense desire to also reproduce. Adding paperwork to the bureacracy of marriage should not be too difficult. After all, the desire for spawnlings is a powerful and intrinsic motivation -- who wants to be the dead end on the human family tree anyway?

One size doesn't fit all

Yesterday I went to IKEA to buy a few plant stands for my plants which are currently living on my dining room table and would like a home of their own -- not to mention, I'd like my table back. I never did find the plant stands, but I did find a nice ironing board with a green and white plaid cover that I liked. I need an ironing board because I used to use my dining room table for ironing purposes, but now that my plants living on my table, something had to change. So, I got the ironing board.

I got the ironing board to fit into my car after a brief struggle. Mind you, it was pouring out -- have I mentioned this is the soggiest city on the planet? And so anyway, I got the ironing board in, and drove blithely on with the rest of my day. The interesting thing happened when I got home and 'undressed' the ironing board; I was briefly motivated to iron last night and so I hauled out the two loads of laundry I'd done on Saturday, stared at it, and then at the unassembled ironing board. Finally, I set up the board (after about 20 minutes of contemplating and watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". I love me my reality television). And that's when I realized...

IKEA designs its products for tall, Swedish people.

No, the ironing board is not hip level, or waist level, but comes somewhere up against my chest! Woe! As someone built low to the ground, I will need an apple crate a la Gillian Anderson to use the board. I suppose if you're a tall, Swedish person, it'd be the right height, but me not being a tall, Swedish person, it's very high and possibly may cause me injury since I'm no good at the ironing thing. In a way now, I'm glad I didn't get the plant stands -- what if those too were made for tall, Swedish people? And then I couldn't reach to water my plants?

I do have to say, in my defense of not being a tall Swedish person, I'm just the right height -- my legs do reach all the way to the ground. Eh, when I'm standing. Not sitting. So, if any of you have an apple crate you're willing to get rid of, please send to me, thankyouverymuch.

And no, I didn't actually end up ironing yesterday, though I did fold laundry. One thing at time, folks, one thing at a time.

Miscellany

My RSS feed is broken and I don't know how to fix it, wah! In the meantime, this is a great opportunity try out the atom feed, which is apparently working.

Yo, you can go

Photographer fired over pictures of American-flag draped coffins. My question is, why the photographer? Why not take action against the Times which actually published the photos? Or is that coming later? but I'm not unsympathetic to the Pentagon's POV on this (though, I don't think you can get more anonymous than flag-draped coffins).

Second, my writing idol, Ellen Goodman comes through with this column on Bush's recent press conference.

This is all for today, but I'm sure I can summon up more righteous indignation later on this weekend.

Real Life

Those of you who know me, know that I suffer from an incurable addiction to reality television. There are very few reality shows I don't like; well, that "Gay or Not" show was just stupid and the second "Joe Millionaire" was a trainwreck at best. Oh, and I wasn't thrilled by "Hot or Not" or "I'm a Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!" and I think "Big Brother" is akin to watching paint dry.

That being said, on the reality shows I do like -- "Survivor," "The Apprentice," "Fear Factor" -- I like the real life drama that comes out of being put into an unnatural situation and I'm fascinated by the way people act even when they know that their every move is being watched and taped. I mean, Omarosa on "The Apprentice" and Trish on "The Bachelor", for instance -- have they absolutely no shame? Did they lose all sense of reason and dignity the minute they were cast? For heaven's sakes...

But. My rant is about neither of those shows, but rather about "American Idol." For God's sake, what are the voters on? Seeing as how that episode hasn't aired on the West Coast yet, I'll try to keep my righteous indignation to a low roar, but for God's sake, this is a talent competition, people! A talent competition! But then again, since we're not especially capable of managing to elect a president without help from the Supreme Court, why should it be any different on "American Idol"? If this keeps up, I may have to start watching "Enterprise" instead. "Enterprise"! What does that tell you about my current level of digust?

Calm, calm, calm.

Bjorn pointed me to this link about Princess Diana and being a few hours ahead of him, I was already aware of the special "48 Hours Investigates" and while I'm a fan of English royalty, I chose to skip this programme tonight for a pure and simple reason: the woman is dead, let her rest in peace.

Also, I've signed up for a gmail account. It's not like I really need another account, but my seemag1@yahoo.com account has been overrun by spam and it might be nice to start moving my internet activities to another account. We'll see. It's mostly that I saw that it was shiny and I hit "Sign me up!" I'm so easy sometimes.

On Iraq

Liz Logan provided me with a site that tells just how much that war in Iraq is costing you, the American taxpayers. I'd say international here, but who are we fooling? It's not really an 'international' coalition, no matter how much the current administration wants to paint it that way; one figure I found shows the American presence to be around 140,000 troops, with other nations contributing 23,000 soldiers. (Other figures estimate the Americans at 135,000). The Spanish troops number around 1,500. That's less than one percent. The Hondurans, God bless them, are even less than that at 350; but one could argue that at least they showed up to contribute and see what happened -- now they are going home.

Regardless of the monetary cost or the number of troops each country has contributed to the occupation, the human cost is way too high for what we are accomplishing over there and because of that, I can say that the loss of life is senseless. I point to the Madrid bombings last month and the subsequent withdrawal of the Spanish from Iraq as a prime example. Two hundred people died on March 11 in Madrid in what is probably the work of Al-Qaeda and in response to Spain's staunch support of the Americans in Iraq. By withdrawing now, Spain has shown terrorists that yes, terrorism does work. The time for Spain to withdraw was months ago, before March 11, when the pulse of the population was against the war.

A country cannot give way to the murderers of 200 people, and if anything, Spain should have been more resolute to stay. I'm saying this with a grain of salt -- I never believed Iraq was a prime breeding ground for Al-Qaeda prior to the war compared to other countries (Hello, Saudi Arabia!), but I certainly believe it is now. If this international war on terrorism is to be won, it requires devotion and dedication from all parties involved; giving in to the terrorists means now means Al-Qaeda has won one more battle; let's hope they don't win the war.

You can now add the 200 dead in Madrid to the list of war casualities, as well as Iraqi civillians, at least one hostage, and of course, our brave coalition troops -- bless all of them, whatever country they come from.

Places to go, things to see

Two quick links:

Peep Research. Witness the amazing contribution these little creatures have made to modern science.

Pity the poor Nigerian astronaut. Won't you please bring him home? Link courtesy of Bjorn who recognizes my weakness for the poor, poor Nigerians.

Everyone's a blogger these days

The thing about blogging is that you have to come up with something new and original and interesting to blog about. This is a lot harder than one might think. And as you might have guessed -- and those of you who know me in RL know for sure -- I have a hard time staying on any one subject for any length of time. So I'm sure there are people who stop by and find a topic here of interest and then are forced to flee when they realize I'm back to the shallow, superficial type stuff.

There are a lot of things on my mind and most of them could probably find a home here, but I have to weigh what I'm thinking or feelings against other considerations. First of all, I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog. A few of you leave comments regularly or are RL people; the RL people already know the important stuff and the same goes for the longtime virtual friends. So I leave most of the private stuff out. You're not going to find too much incriminating stuff here. Exploding eggs and chair building stories, yes, but nothing more racy than that.

Actually, I'm quite boring. Exploding eggs is really as good as it gets.

I've realized that one should never post work-related stuff in a public forum. The Internet isn't as anonymous as you might think it. You never know who is passing by. So, only in the vaguest terms will you find work-related stuff here.

I try to avoid politics. Some of you who stop by are of different political persuasions and it's all good. I really don't want to inadvertantly insult someone and I'm also not that interested in having a political debate. I have my beliefs, other people have theirs, and I respect that. Every now and then though, I reserve the right to bash the politician of my choice.

Which leaves me with links. Linking is always safe because you can always come up with something interesting that people will like and it's amazing how much free time some people have on their hands (or wish they had something to do with their spare time). And in the spirit of going with the link, this one is for Bjorn, who has recently discovered "Sports Night." Go forth and enjoy.

Who comes a knockin'?

I was going through my site stats today. Those of you who have go through stats regularly know just how scary this can be. There's the "Whee! People are visiting!" euphoria, quickly followed by the "Oh no! People are visiting!" panic attack. I've pretty much out-grown the latter and just hope no one leaves here with bleeding eyeballs. However, I do wonder where some people come from and how disappointed they must be when they end up here.

For some reason, Paris Hilton keeps showing up in my site stats. In fact, several Paris Hilton sites show up as referrers. If you're here for the Paris Hilton tape, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Nothing to see here regarding Paris, unless you want my rant on how a completely spoiled, self-involved woman can suddenly become, well, someone worthy of attention, despite having done absolutely nothing; that's America for you, people!

On that same token, no nude celebrities here either. Honestly. The only images on this site are the book covers I've painstakingly made in Photoshop. No one in any of those pictures is nude and no, I'm not going to Photoshop heads to bodies thankyouverymuch. So, those of you looking for nude Paris Hilton? Again. Wrong place. (Though the question begs to be asked, why? Actually, don't answer that. This is a family blog).

Those of you coming here from Al Sharpton's website, I wish your man good luck in his campaign, if indeed he's still campaigning and actually, until all of you started coming here, I didn't know Al Sharpton was running for president. Sorry, sorry. I get a wee bit muddled with all the inexplicable John Kerry adoration. Speaking of the plastic man, those of you finding your way here from Kerry's campaign site, are not going to find much in the way of props for your man here either. I'm one of those "Anyone but Bush" people and I live in a state that's pretty much "Everyone for Bush," so don't expect any political activism here.

Those of you who came here look for content about Australia? Again, I must apologize. I have no idea how I got listed on an Oz site. I've never been to Australia, but I do know Miss Barr and ChristineCGB (links on the sidebar) and so if you want to know more about the land down under, I suggest you talk to one of them. I'll probably just feed you stereotypical stories about wombats and coral reefs and poisonous snakes. Or something.

However, if you are here from the No War site, you've come to the right place.

These things remind me of you

I was poking around an Amazon.com gift list today in search of a gift for a particular individual who shall remain nameless. Gift lists are great -- you don't have to think about what a person might want because they're telling you what they want, and then all you have to do is click a button and voila, it's done. What could have been a mind-wracking ordeal is over in a matter of minutes. And I admit, I use registries a lot -- find them oh so convenient, especially if I have to ship a gift for a wedding or an anniversary; it saves me time and effort to get online, pull up a registry, and the only energy expended are mouse clicks.

But -- you did know a 'but' was coming, didn't you? -- I also find the idea of a registry awfully materialistic; in the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that I also have an Amazon wishlist myself. I made it a few years back, judging by some of the dates on the items I selected -- obviously done while I was going through a short-lived Eleanor of Aquitaine phase (I found her annoying after a while and could sympathesize with poor Henry who finally locked her away) -- and then promptly forgot about the darn thing until recently. So now that that hypocritical note is out of the way, I feel more prepared to talk about registries.

Recently, my parents received two wedding invitations. One included four cards -- four! -- to the various stores where the bride and groom were registered. The second kindly asked that guests not bring any gifts at all. While I appreciate gift-giving as a traditional part of a wedding, a way of getting a couple started in their lives, these days it's not as important, at least not in my experience. People are getting married later, they have jobs, they accumulate stuff, they live together, etc. As a result, a lot of registries are filled with the more extravagant "wants" rather than the more basic needs.

More and more, I'm turning into an anti-registry person. Why? Because it feels like an obligation, that some events exist solely for the purpose of bestowing gifts and in some cases, the recipients are more excited about the gifts than the fact you attended their special event (this actually happened to me and because it had been a financial burden to make the trip to attend, it was a wee bit hurtful as well). You're no longer giving gifts to the new mother because you want to but because she is registered at Babies R Us and so the expectation is written in black and white. Granted, registering makes it easy when you want to give a gift and I'm guessing that for most big events, we really do want to give something as a token of the celebration, and hell, why not request it?

But back to my original bottomline: I think it was so very cool of that couple to request no gifts on their wedding invitations. I think it was cool and classy and it showed they were inviting you, not because they wanted your gifts, but they wanted you. Compare that to someone who enclosed four registry cards in her invitation.

Gets you where it hurts

Here's an article on the spiraling cost of textbooks. I think $900 is about right for texts, and it's wonderful when you get $200 of that back; I actually did okay by selling many of mine on Amazon.com and a few that I couldn't, I donated to textbook programs going to schools in Africa.

Speaking of Africa, since our media does not seem to want do its job, I wanted to alert you to the current situation in the Sudan. Given that this is the ten year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, what's going on in Sudan would be a perfect opportunity for the world community to prove that it has changed and it is commited to making a difference and saving lives.

However, this doesn't seem to be the case and all we have is a lukewarm statement from the President, in which he condemns the atrocities, but once again, does not call it genocide à la Clinton, nor does he promise military help. The situation is serious and warrants being taken seriously, yet it seems the world powers have once again forgotten their vow of "never again."

Internet sweet internet

My connectivity problems have finally been solved, after driving me batty for the last month or so. Of course this means my collection of emails etc is, well, staggeringly large, especially those in the Yahoo! account, because most of the timeouts happened -- you guessed it -- in Yahoo (and also the local library).

So, am a little behind but I hope to catch up slowly over the next few days. It doesn't help we've been down a person at work so I've been busier than usual.

Google bomb

I wasn't planning on blogging today out of respect for what happened in Rwanda, but I discovered that the word Jew had been google bombed to what can only be described as a 'hate' site. I can't think of a more appropriate topic to blog about on this day than who is a Jew and point people in the right direction to learn about Jews. Whoever set up this google-bomb has a sick sense of humor and if you blog/LJ, please do what you can to make sure that the google-bomb about Jews is pointing elsewhere. We should have absolutely no patience for this kind of thing.

And just for good measure, Jew and Jews. Take that, google bomb!

The April that would not end

After blogging about shameful consumerism, it feels shallow, almost disrespectful to address something on the opposite side of the spectrum: the shameful neglect of the genocide in Rwanda. The ten-year anniversary of that particular holocaust is upon us and it's probably a good time to ask how the world could so ignore the slaughter of thousands in just a matter of days? In case you want some statistics, that's 800,000 people in 100 days, 250,000 people in Kigali alone. This was a planned and determined extermination by the interim government in order to remove opposition. Rwanda is such a clear case of genocide, and still no one did anything, despite that in 1945, after the fall of Germany, so many said, "Never again."

You can talk about Iraqis needing saving all day long, but that's just changing the fundamental reason for a war we never needed. When you put something under the title of humanitarian, it becomes much more palatable and justifiable. We're in Iraq because Saddam was a bad bad leader and he killed lots of people and looky at us, we're liberating them. And yet when the government of Rwanda did the same thing -- in plain sight of the world -- no nation of the world felt particularly humanitarian enough to say, "Whoa, let's go do something about that." It makes you wonder how the political process determines who we will save, who we will help, and whom we will leave alone. We all agree that there is value in life, that we value all life, yet it becomes increasingly apparent that some lives are worth more than others, hence, more worthy of saving than others. It's how that calculation is made that disturbs me. If saving Iraqis from the brutal regime of Saddam is the main and only consideration (currently as there are no WMDs) of the war there, then surely the Clinton administration should have applied that same line of thinking to Rwanda.

An excerpt from HRW's Leave None to Tell Their Story:

U.N. troops, in Rwanda under the terms of the peace accords, tried for a few hours to keep the peace, then withdrew to their posts—as ordered by superiors in New York—leaving the local population at the mercy of assailants. Officers opposed to Bagosora realized that a continuing foreign presence was essential to restricting the killing campaign and appealed to representatives of France, Belgium and the U.S. not to desert Rwanda. But, suspecting the kind of horrors to come, the foreigners had already packed their bags. An experienced and well-equipped force of French, Belgian, and Italian troops rushed in to evacuate the foreigners, and then departed. U.S. Marines dispatched to the area stopped in neighboring Burundi once it was clear that U.S.citizens would be evacuated without their help. The first impression of international indifference to the fate of Rwandans was confirmed soon after, when the Belgians began arranging for the withdrawal of their troops from the U.N. peacekeeping force. Ten of these soldiers, a contingent different from those of the evacuation expedition, had been slain and, as the organizers of the violence had anticipated, the Belgian government did not want to risk any further casualities.

You can read more about what happened in Rwanda in April of 1994 here. There will be a moment of silence at noon tomorrow in rememberance of the Rwandan slaughter.

In which much money is spent

Today, V and I demonstrated our mastery of the capitalist system and excercised our right to go shopping as if all of the stores on the planet were going to be sucked into outerspace tomorrow. We basically hit a Very Large Mall With Many Outlet Stores and went to town. People, we had an action plan. How scary freaky is that?

The last time I went shopping, I came home with outfits in red, black and white. This time, my shopping involved pretty pastels, including pink and baby blue. I was getting all excited about the girly girl pink and I even was persuaded to try on a gentle yellow sweater, but ended up not getting that. My haul, for those of you who care about the nitty gritty details, was: one pair of low-rider khakis, one baby blue cable knit sweater, one baby blue stretch button down shirt, one pink sweater, two tank tops (one beige, the other red) and one pair of yoga pants (the new term for sweat pants). V's haul was much greater than mine and I was in awe.

We had so many bags at one point we were falling all over ourselves. Add V's large diet Coke and two handbags and we could barely keep things from falling out of our arms. Finally, we figured out the magic of organizing ourselves and putting bags inside of bags (V actually tossed one of hers out) and that made it a little less crazy.

All in all, a very good day. It's nice to have some color in my wardrobe, and we both agreed that we don't have to go visit the temple of capitalism again until the fall. Whew! To be honest, I really, really don't like shopping, but with good company and comfortable shoes, it can be bearable.

Squee!

My school just went way way way up in the US World & News ranking. Which is even cooler when you realize that the ranking is based on my graduating class. In other words, we rocked. When it comes to the MBA, the higher the ranking, the oh so better the results you get for your MBA. And even better, we're tied with the Big University to the West! Whoop!

::happy dance::

Music

I've finally changed the CD in my alarm clock. After weeks and weeks of Lorenna McKennit, I switched over to Sarah Brightman's "Harem Tour" CD, courtesy of T'Other Logan. I have very specific requirements for the type of music I like to wake up to, thanks in part to a rude, rude awakening to Tejano. Tejano is the kind of music you think, "Wow, accordians! Peppy!" and then you switch the station really quickly. (I'd go about radio DJs too, but I'm running out of time).

Like I said, Liz sent me Harem Tour. I'd heard rumors at the concert that there was a special CD available for sale, but never quite chased them down. Plus, I was pretty sure this tour CD would end up being another Classics disappointment. Luckily for me, Liz and her friend are more devoted fans than I and so I got my hot little hands on the CD, with All!New!Songs with the exception of A Question of Honour, which has been around for absolutely forever. So far, My Imagination is my favorite; it's got that pop, light-hearted sound I enjoyed so much about Dive.

In fact, as I was telling Liz, Sarah's sound is very different on this CD. You can tell it was recorded quite some time ago, because several of the songs also have an Eden vibe to them. Plus, her voice sounds a lot less, I don't know how to put this, but pure? Maybe untrained? Harem is a good CD, but she sounds a lot more affected than ever before. I think this tour CD captures Old!Sarah perfectly and while there are some things that just get better with time, nostalgia also can be meaningful.

****

Don't you hate mystery books when about 100 pages from the end you figure out whodunit? Gah. I still stayed up until about 12:30 last night to finish off the book. It was Steve Martini's The Arraignment, and no, I don't recommend it; the suspension of disbelief was almost too much to take, not to mention the whole crazy mystery and obviousness of the suspect. Martini is the type of anvil-dropping author, which these days makes me absolutely nuts. He's so fond of writing something and then telling the reader what it means. For example, Martini will write an exchange very similar to the following:

"It is raining," Harry tells me. He's talking about the weather.

Read 300 pages of that and it'll slowly drive you insane. And I'm probably not one to criticize the first-person/present tense method of writing, but Martini is not particularly good at that either. He overuses the phrase "tells me" or "tells him" and I think, to make his thrillers more literary in value, he adds tons and tons of metaphors and similes. Add on top of that, his OC Paul Madriani is a self-righteous, smug Mary Sue who is absolutely insufferable. It's never a good sign when the reader is rooting for the hero of the novel to be dropped off the edge of a Mayan pyramid.

Next up is Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake."

Google is hiring!

Check out the opportunity of a lifetime here.

And here's a link especially for T'Other Liz, but others might get a kick out of it too.

Campaign 2004

I got this from a co-worker, and thought it was way too funny not to blog. What, you were expecting Henry VIII? Consider this the gratuitious political post of the month.

2004 GOP Bumper Stickers

Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
BU_ _SH_ _!
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough
Bush/Cheney '04: Apocalypse Now!
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a time
Bush/Cheney '04: Or else.
Bush/Cheney '04: The economy's stupid!
Bush/Cheney "04: The Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: It takes a village idiot
George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There>
Bush/Cheney '04: God Save the King!
Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude"
Vote Bush in '04: Because dictatorship is easier
Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer!
Vote for Bush & You Get Dick!
Bush/Cheney '04: WWJB: Who Would Jesus Bomb?

If you have read this far, under Section 17 H(2)a.3 of the Patriot Act, you are under arrest

All good intentions

I meant to blog tonight about Henry but I kind of lost track of time between making pizza dough for tomorrow night's dinner and playing Civilization. I only meant to play Civilization for a couple of years -- I'd started the game yesterday and retired after about 30 minutes, so I didn't think I'd be enthralled today. Ah, but that was before I discovered the power of the right click button! And oooh, I finally figured out how to do the espionage thingy! And I have a culture overflowing with... well, culture. I kept playing thinking, "I can stop anytime." Well, no, no I can't. You'd think after a decade of playing this game I would know better. My delusions and I will be sitting right over here doin' just fine.

So no Henry VIII for you people tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

I still have my cold, but it's now a liveable cold rather than "I'm going to die" cold. Just so you know, OTC drugs are wonderful, wonderful things.

Just passing through

I've got the cold (or something) from hell. A bowling ball sized lump settled in my throat and chest last Sunday and stubbornly refuses to leave.

Two things: here's a a study on how too much sleep is not a good thing and second, results from the World Figure Skating Championships.

In the next few days, I shall have my thoughts for you on "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George. Yes, my time with Henry has finally come to an end and on a day when I'm feeling less tepid, I will let you know what I thought about this particular novel.

Nothing to see here, folks

Literally. Nothing. Reminds me of a skit I did once when I was in middle school where I played a librarian. My entire part consisted of walking out on to the bare stage, standing in front of the audience and then shushing them and walking off. That was the entire skit. Call it a one-woman show. Seema the Librarian!

At any rate, what I'm saying is, I'm offline for the next few days. Enjoy your weekends, be safe, and I hope to have fun and clever things to report to you.

Philosophy. Maybe

So there is an article or two about why people blog. It's all fascinating stuff, but it's all about the journalism, baby, it's not about the people. In B-School, they taught us to come up with a mission statement, something that defines who you are. For instance, part of the mission statement for Very Big Insurance Company included the word's "to be the first and best choice for the customer."

I surely don't intend to be your first and best choice because God knows, there are 80 million screaming blogs out there on the Internet and I'm amazed that you found me and that you stick around to read. So I thought, intead of having a journalist tell you why I blog, I'm going to put some of that B-School knowledge to work and tell you myself.

I blog because about two and a half years ago, my brother sent me an email that said, "Blogger. You should do this." And when it comes to tech stuff, I usually listen to him. So I got the blog and then it was like, "Oooh, scary, what do I say?" Just for the record, this whole blogging thing is pretty darn scary becuase you start out with the theory that no one is reading and it's all fun and games until when you look at site stats and realize "Ohmygodpeoplearereadingme!"

But I digress (I do that a lot).

It took a while to figure out why I blog and what I blog has a lot to do with the why. Over the 2 1/2 years I've had this blog, I've meandered through my day, reviewed books, gone off on televisions shows, occasionally lambasted politicians (This blog is a W-free zone!) and whinged about Stuff (tm). But that's an inherent lack of focus. So starting from today, I'm going to run this blog like a corporation, with a mission statement and everything. The action plan comes later, but the mission statement is first and foremost the most important (after the logo, of course; nothing succeeds without a cool logo. And oh yes, a catchy slogan rocks too. But. I digress).

In a nutshell, I like to laugh. I like to see the ridiculous and I prefer the ridiculous over the serious. If an egg explodes in my face, yeah it sucks, but when I take a step back, I realize it's damn funny. There is humor in everything and I use my blog to try and take myself -- and life -- less seriously. If there is something I cannot poke fun at, chances are I'm not going to blog it here. I don't want to whine and I don't want to complain. That's not what the blog is for -- navel gazing, yes, but a pity party, no.

So that's what this blog is really here for. I like the funny and I want to bring the funny. I'll try to keep the politics and intelligent stuff to a minimum. That's right, this is the shallow!blog. For the most part, you're going to get exploding eggs and chair building stories; if explosions and random burnings aren't your thing, you can find the dull here. Politics are here.

I am Seema, hear me roar!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I built a chair. Yes, yes, I did. Now some of you playing the home game might say, "Well, that's no big deal, I build chairs all the time." Those of you who are impressed that I built a chair without inflicting any bodily harm on myself might lose that respect when I tell you it was from IKEA (especially my brother and Bjorn, who apparently have furnished their entire living space from IKEA; just to clarify, my brother and Bjorn do not live together). As for me, I've never built anything before. Except a wheelbarrow. But that doesn't count because I was helping my dad and iirc, I screwed something in backwards. My dad is the only person in the neighborhood with an upside down strut assembly (or whatever it's called). But I digress.

So I built myself a pretty new chair. Specifically this chair. I chose white because I have as of yet not bought a sofa and I thought white is a nice color to go with any sofa I might choose to buy in the future. However, it took me 8 months to buy this chair, when I'd decided in August that I wanted it. Who knows when I'll buy a sofa? (Though I did see one I liked a lot when we were at IKEA; btw, we were at IKEA for five hours yesterday. Isn't that a very, very long time to be at IKEA?).

But. Back to my story. So it took me 90 minutes to build the chair. I know, I know, really long time, and those of you handy with tools? Stop. Laughing. But I have a good excuse, honestly. For about 20 of those minutes, I was on the phone with my cousin. For 30 minutes, I was distracted by "Sports Night" and really, the hard work all took place in the last 40 minutes; my thumbs will never be the same again; they are still feeling all tingly from their wrench work.

Thankfully, IKEA provided the wrenches for the job, so I didn't have to purchase any tools. Granted, teeny tiny wrenches, but whatever. There was also a pretty diagram with very clear instructions made so any person who has never built a chair before can follow and absorb. However, despite the pretty diagram and very clear instructions and the supplies provided, the crucial missing element was another person. I think theoretically, you can build this chair without another person; I obviously did. But it'd be a hell of lot easier if someone else was there, if for nothing else, to hand you a beer when you can't figure out why something won't screw (while on the phone with my cousin, I realized I was using the wrong screws in the wrong place -- hence, My Issues (tm) and why I wasted almost a half hour -- the "Sports Night" half hour -- trying to get the supports put together).

Plus, building this chair means you have to contort your body into very interesting positions, some of which I had not thought physically possible. In addition to my sore thumbs, I have muscles creaking at me, muscles which after 28 years of living in my body are just now making their presence known. And I had the blinds open which means, I'm pretty sure, the lady across the way with the big beautiful dog, probably had a great view of me going through the IKEA workout. I'm hoping it was raining hard enough that the view was obscured. Either that or she was too busy playing with that big beautiful dog to pay attention to me. Why, yes, I do think the world revolves around moi.

Anyway, I finally got all of the pieces assembled; the chair comes six pieces. That's a lot of pieces! And there are a total of 10 screws. That's a lot of screws! And all of the screws are labeled with numbers like 00324X and even the wrenches have numbers -- this is for easy matching and so you know whether you have the right parts or not. I was able to figure all of that out and only screwed in the wrong screws once (and it took 30 minutes to figure that out, but whatever); I'd like to say it wasn't my fault because eight of the screws bore startling resemblance to each other and are probably related by factory.

What I found most difficult was actually figuring out how to get all the pieces to line up so I could screw them together. Because of the way the chair is shaped, it's not easy at any time to lay the thing down flat. The most extreme hardest part was screwing the actual sitting part to the support, because of the awkward angle. This is the part where it would have been very helpful if IKEA had included another person in its packaging. As it was, building this chair would make a good challenge for Survivor. Especially if you withhold the wrenches.

But all in all, life is good and while I don't have a sofa, I now have another very comfy chair in the living room so I can actually have people over to watch movies etc. And, before you ask, yes, I have sat in the chair and no, it did not creak or fall apart. So there. I am so all over this IKEA thing. Rah!

When is a story not a story

I've been thinking more about what ails me concerning "Lost in Translation." I complained about the pacing -- utter slowness -- and the overwhelming feeling of despondency in the movie, punctuated by brief bursts of humor or insight. But in general, I didn't like it, Sam I am.

I think Bjorn hit the reason on the head when he noted that "Lost in Translation" was not a story, but rather than a character vignette. Granted, I've been struggling long and hard with how to write a story, because as a writer, that is my shortcoming. The stuff I put out? Not really a story.

But even so, I'm going to say one thing I do know for certain, is that a story involves change. If nothing changes -- ie character, situation -- or we don't learn anything new about a character, it's not a story. Call it a vignette, a character sketch or a portrait of a situation -- there are tons of phrases out there -- but it's not a story.

A story involves a journey of some kind. The journey can be external or internal, can be action-orientated or character-orientated. In the end though, the journey means the story started at point A and ended at point Z. There may have been detours or backpedaling, but in the end, we the readers end up at somewhere other than where we began. That is a story. And in "Lost in Translation," nothing happens.

Two strangers meet up, they find their perfect "right now" opposite and they spend time together, and then voila, at the end of the film, they back to being the people they were before they met. I had no doubt, at the end, that Charlotte would return to slinking around in her underwear and Bob would continue to fax his wife. These two characters had a relationship (platonic), it didn't work out for many very good reasons, but bam! All of that sushi-eating, karoke-singing and mutual despondency had no effect on either Charlotte or Bob. Neither of them learned anything or accepted anything.

In the end, "Lost in Translation" failed for me because I didn't learn anything new, nor did I feel any sympathy for either character and I certainly didn't have any hopes for their future. I admit it's a good film if you're interested in the here and now without the prospect of a pay-off in the future. There are subtle nuances that are well-done, bits of dialogue that are snappy and clever, but in general, it's not a story, but a vignette about two very, very depressed and boring people.

My brother is a man of his word. He says he won't talk about gay marriage any more in his blog, so he has passed the baton on to me. Here are 12 reasons why you shouldn't support gay marriage. I'm especially concerned about the possibility of dogs getting married. I hereby propose a Constitutional amendment to limit marriage to only those who have no more than two legs, however that would include birds as well. So dang it, a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to home sapiens sapiens only (the extra 'sapiens' are just in case an erectus or habilis is suddenly discovered in the White House).

Come to think of it, I think the amendment should limit marriage to those born only on this planet; this is just in case the Daily World News (found at a supermarket near you) is correct and there are indeed skulls and other Martian remains littering the red planet. Heaven forbid if a Martian wants to marry an Earthling!

I have now completed my sisterly duty.

I spent the weekend as a mad party girl, flitting from one place to another. Somewhere in there, I managed to get time to see Lost in Translation, which I've been dying to see for just about however long it's been out. I was ready for high class, deep, moving, light-hearted fare; the last movie I saw in the theater was Freaky Friday and I was ready for a film not aimed at the Disney audience.

But, was I ready for Scarlett Johanssen in her underwear? High brow film this may be, and possibly the reason why I. Just. Didn't. Get. It., because I've spent too much time digesting mall movies and aforementioned Disney flicks. There are three characters in this film, along with their supporting props: Tokyo, and there's Scarlett in her almost see-through underwear and then there's Bill Murray with his whiskey. Bill plays Bob Harris, a famous movie star who is doing commercials for a Japanese whiskey company for ::gasp:: $2 million. Scarlett plays Charlotte, who has been married to John for two years, but acts like she just met the guy at the bus stop (in all fairness, Hubby flirts with Cameron Diaz look-alike in front of Charlotte).

Both of Bill and Charlotte's relationships are tenuous. Bob forgets his son's birthday, talks to his wife via fax (and the obligatory cell phone) and she sends over samples of carpet for his study. Charlotte mopes, sits around in her underwear a lot (at one point, I was screaming, "For God's sake, you're in Tokyo! Put on some pants and go out!). So our depressed and morose heroes meet up in (surprise) a bar and form some kind of connection, built of mutual detachment. If these people were any more out of it, they'd be orbiting the planet.

They bop around Tokyo, sometimes together, sometimes not, and they share long silences and meaningful conversations over alcohol and sushi; the pacing is unbelievably slow and yes, there are a few funny moments, but they are far and few between. You have to sit through a lot of oddness and weird scenes to get through to the good stuff, and meanwhile, you're still wondering about the prostitute who shows up at Bob's door asking him to "lick her stockings."

There are a few obligatory karoke scenes, a beautiful scene of a Buddhist temple (don't ask me the significance -- I have no idea), and lots of flashy, bright photography. In terms of acting, can't complain. Murray is great. Johanssen does a fairly good job as well. The problem was, I didn't like either of these characters, didn't feel a connection, and just wanted them go away.

The fact that the relationship remains platonic is a Very Good Thing (tm). Neither of these people knows what they want or how to get it; the crux of this movie is that these two people are perfect for each at this very moment. Not in the future, but now. It's an interesting idea -- not all relationships are meant to last forever, and all relationships have their sags, where people drift apart briefly and find someone/something else to get them through the rough time. I'm just not sure whether that requires two hours of film.

You can test your WPM here. I average between 84 to 92 words per minute, and believe it or not, I'm more than 80 percent accurate. The Huckleberry Finn test was the hardest for me; I kept correcting Mark Twain's grammar and Huck's speech, and that's no good. I did the best on the competitive analysis piece and fell apart on the tiger thing again, mostly because I kept spelling words like "the" wrong and inserting random punctuation.

But still, much fun. I think one can type much faster when it's all in your head, versus copying something out, because there's that whole brain-to-fingers lag time.

Two things

First, one of my favorite short stories of all time is Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway. Sparse prose, careful attention to necessary detail, atmosphere and character conveyed through choice pieces of dialogue, and of course, a gradual unveiling of the conflict between the two characters.

Second, Elmore Leonard talks about writing and while some people aren't happy about his stance about adverbs or "book-saidisms," it's got to be said. And I'd like to add to the list to avoid paragraphs talking about a character's boredom (the worst story openings are the ones the begin with "Mary Sue was bored because she had nothing to do) and also a reduction in the use of the passive voice, ie the verb to be.

That is all.

I allegedly have permalinks back...

Tales from the Kitchen

So right, I'm feeling enormously productive. It's not yet 10 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday and manuscript has been printed, mailed off and I got an oil change. So I thought, must eat something and then go to the gym. Perfect plan. I had hard boiled eggs earlier in the week and so I peeled two of them and stuck them in the microwave for a few seconds to, y'know, take away the sting of the refrigerator cold?

Now I know all you talented cooks are saying, "But Seema..." and I know, I know, but I wouldn't be doing my civic duty if I didn't inform you that eggs, when placed in the microwave, are not happy campers. First, when you remove them, they hiss at you and make all sorts of whistling noises. I was like, "Oooh, eggs talk!" Of course, I did get that tingle of ominous anticipation running down my spine. But wanting to live life dangerously, I took a large fork (no need to be subtle about my intentions) and poked the eggs. And then, boom!

Yes, folks, I will be picking egg stuff out of places for weeks to come. I've got egg in my hair, on my face (thank God I was wearing glasses -- the hot stuff missed my eyes), under my shirt, on the cabinets, refrigerator, floor and even on the ceiling. I kid you not. Egg everywhere. I have already mopped up the floor and now have to figure out how to reach the egg that's on the ceiling. And have I mentioned exploded egg kinda reeks? Not quite on par as with spoiled milk or eggs, but still, there's a very distinctive aroma that I'm sure I'm going to be stuck with for weeks.

On the other hand, what was left of my eggs was quite delicious :-)

I'll always have Paris

My site stats tell me that two sites whose main topic is Paris Hilton (gah, gah, gah) are somehow linking to me. Add dear Paris to John Kerry, Al Sharpton, and Howard Dean -- all individuals whose sites show up as referrers. Kerry and Dean, I can understand; I've linked to their sites in the past, and I've gone off on both in this here blog. But Al Sharpton? Paris Hilton?

Might as well feel the google love now. It used to be that Mary Kate and Ashley Oleson were top searches for this site because I once made fun of their magazine. And since I really don't want people who are looking for Paris Hilton to feel disappointed about the lack of Paris on this site, I hereby ask a profound question: why? This is a woman who does nothing but party and make, eh, X-rated movies (check your email -- I'm sure someone will be kind enough to tell you how to purchase your very own copy within minutes). And oh yes, she doesn't know what a Wal-Mart is. So, what's the deal? Why is she popular?

I apologize to Mary Kate and Ashley for making fun of their magazine. At least they've done something to earn their fame and fortune; as for Paris, other than shlepping and sleeping around, what gives? Hmmm?

On writing

"Writing is the most demanding of callings, more harrowing than a warrior's, more lonely than a whaling captain's?that, in essence, is the modern writer's message." ?Melvin Maddocks

I just wrote to my RL writing group about how there are no good writers, just good editors. In fact, it's gotten to a point where I spend more time revising than actually writing. Part of it is because as a writer, sometimes it's necessary to just push a story ahead and not worry about the quality of the writing until later.

I make no bones about the fact that I despise editing passionately. Writing is easy, editing is hard. I do my own initial editing -- spellcheck, grammar check, rewrite of passive voice sentence, removing 'that', rewording clunkiness, and adding details -- and then it's off to a second or sometimes third or fourth opinion. And then I delude myself into thinking this is perfection itself and that the editor is absolutely going to love my story; after all, what can possibly be left to fix? Ha!

There is truth, y'know, to the statement that the writer lives in her own world. It's the only possible explanation for the delusion that one's writing is perfect hot off the press and requires nothing more than a rubber stamp of "Good for you! You rock!" If ever an editor came back at me with those sentences, I'd probably fall out of my chair and then once I picked myself up off the floor, I'd find a new editor.

Writing is demanding because there are 'off' stories, 'off' days, 'off' ideas -- things that just never get quite off the ground. Then there are moments of pure unadulterated brilliance. I occasionally squee when I write something that's just absolutely (mho) wonderful and then other times, I'm kicking myself because I just turned out a paragraph of pure crap.

Even when something goes off for editing, I already have an idea of what's going on with the story. As I said to Rocky the other night, "This story is very heavy-handed and beware of falling anvils." I already knew I was beating the reader over the head with a message but being so close to the story itself, I have no idea how to actually fix it, or what should go, or what should stay. It's difficult (but not impossible), as the writer, to make those kinds of decisions easily, especially if one is emotionally attached to the story and has been working on it for a long time (in this case, the story in question is about 5 years old). The objective point-of-view is necessary -- and sometimes that POV comes down to, "This story sucks. The writing isn't so good either. You need to start all over."

Yeah, that kind of FB stings, but it's necessary. If I'm doing something wrong, I want to know. If there's something about my style or character or plot that doesn't work, then I need to know. And if a story doesn't work, the story doesn't work. It's that simple. Sometimes all of the editing in the world just can't save the story and that's okay. Put it away, start something new and move on. It's impossible (and discouraging) to expect perfect copy and perfect stories the first time everytime.

That movie

The Passion of the Christ is the most-discussed topic in my office at the moment. Many people have tickets to go see the film. I, of course, will not see it; my dislike of gore and violence is well known and I spent most of Mel Gibson's Braveheart sitting out in the hall while my friends watched the film in my room.

There are many issues surrounding this film, including claims of anti-semitism and whether it's an evangelical tool. From all of the reviews I've read, I find it interesting that this is a film about suffering and not teaching or revelation; in other words, yes, Christ died on a cross in a horrible, brutal way, but for me as a non-Christian, that means nothing. Many people died on a cross or in other equally brutal and awful ways, yet the impact of those deaths is nothing compared to that of Christ. So there has to be something more to Jesus Christ -- His life and teachings, which led to His death -- that is meaningful to 2 billion people around the world. Yet the film doesn't seem to touch on that at all.

The film is supposed to be a reaffirmation of faith, a way to reach out to 'non-believers', but while I strongly, strongly oppose actions with the view of conversion as an end goal, I can't help but think Mel Gibson is going about it all in the wrong way, generating controversy and publicity as only the man can, and even sparking my own curiosity. In the end though, if someone offered me tickets to see this film, I'd turn them down. The idea of watching cruelty to a man -- whether He be the son of God or otherwise -- for two intense hours with the supposition one will come away with a greater love and devotion for sacrifice somehow doesn't work for me.

The major impact this movie will have on me is that I'll probably cease watching Mel Gibson, though it's no great loss since I've never been a huge fan. But how can I possibly respect a man who says about the Holocaust, "Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps"?

There are people who are going to be deeply moved and deeply touched by this film. I just hope that they know the reasons behind why they had to endure a bloody death, rather than a lifetime of living that had an enormous impact on history.

My brother shunted away all of my spam and virus emails during the MyDoom outbreak and It Was Good (tm). What I missed was the fact that his email said, "Check the spamburger account!" And so when I checked my site stats today, I saw that the site had ballooned from 27 megs to 91 megs. That's right. I had nearly 70 megs worth of spam. I'm sitting here now downloading 740 copies of MyDoom...

Gah. Just. Gah.

This life

So I'm going to be a busy writing bee this week, because I had planned to enter a contest with a deadline of February 28, and was planning to revise an old fic of mine. But that was before I read the contest guidelines. ::thwaps self:: Anyway, now I need to come up with a new idea, new story, and have it all done and edited by Saturday morning.

Thanks to V, I've been listening to Bombay Dreams, with music by A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Don Black. I didn't like it on first listen, because it was basically lifting all of Rahman's filmi music and setting English words to them. The only one I remotely liked was "Chaiyya Chaiyya," was remained exactly as is but with a different female lead singer -- one with a more pleasant voice than the original singer who sang it on "Dil Se." I've been trying to place each song but so far I've only picked out "Taal se Taal" (from "Taal") and one song from "Rangeela." The rest are a complete mystery to me -- so there are obviously Rahman soundtracks out there that I do not have. I'm pretty surprised "Roja" is not on there as that's the soundtrack that put Rahman on the map.

In addition, "The Journey Home," which Sarah Brightman covers on Harem is from "Bombay Dreams," but the original musical version is so different. It's slower, almost depressing, and is missing the lovely bit from "Taal". It's rare that a cover is better than the original, but in this case, that's very much so. Still, the overall CD does have an infectious beat and is quite fun to clean/bop to.

Those of you in places where it percipitation varies from just plain ole rain might not be as excited, but here is the view out of the parental units' dwelling last weeked. That's real white stuff, baby!

KC was unaware of the joy and goodness of breakfast tacos, the best breakfast food ever. However, we are still reeling from this recipe which calls for hard taco shells. Blasphemy!

The claim was made here in the office that Ortega is really manufactured in NYC and how dare it call itself Mexican? Anyway, I do some research and found out that Ortega was really originally Mexican until 1946 when the original 'Mama' Ortega sold it to someone. Who that is, I couldn't figure out, but in 2003, B&G Foods bought it, but remains cagey on a) where the headquarters are located and b) where Ortega products are actually manufactured (not cooked, manufactured. You have eaten Ortega brand stuff, haven't you?).

The bottom line is that breakfast tacos are served in a flour tortilla, which is not the same thing as a taco shell and anyone who tells you differently is probably from NYC.

The scourge of MoveableType. I got a kick out of this one.

Pictures of happy couples getting married in San Francisco.

In search of sustenance

As many of you know, the quest for food is a constant thing with me. Tonight was no different; V and I made plans to meet up after work and go somewhere. That was literally the plan; we'd just drive around until we saw somewhere new and exciting we wanted to go. She had found, in her voyaging around our little part of the big city, a shopping mall and she thought there'd be something cool there to eat. So off we went (after catching "American Idol," of course). The shopping center didn't appeal to us and I was craving desperately a margarita after all of the tech problems at work. So I suggested a hip Mexican restaurant I'd seen, but never gone to.

Anyway, this being me, I got us lost and we never did find the hip Mexican restaurant, so alas, never did get my margarita. But, but, before you weep for me, quite accidentally, we stumbled on our favorite BCS hangout! Yes! Just minutes from our places (V lives across the street from me). Six months living here and I never knew. So of course, even though I knew I wouldn't get my margarita, we decided to have dinner there. After all, who's going to say no to the World's Second Best Burrito?

While we both enjoyed our burritos, we agreed that it wasn't quite the same as the ones in BCS. Was it because the servers weren't as friendly and made us wait despite there not being a line? The ingredients were exactly the same, yet the taste was different. The decor was nearly the same as was the overall funky, earthy feel of the place. But, despite all of that it wasn't and we were both disappointed.

As we left, we realized that we were longing for the liveliness of our grad school days, the days of good conversation after a long day at school while unelegantly (and voraciously) consuming a burrito wrapped in foil; the days when you had to fight to get a table and stand for 15-20 minutes in line before it was your turn to rattle off the list of ingredients you wanted. So perhaps, while the tangibles remained the same, the value of the intangibles was higher than we'd thought it to be.

There's a magic in nostalgia, perhaps one never quite appreciated until you realize it's next to impossible to recapture it. That's the danger -- believing more strongly in the memory of what was rather than accepting the reality of what is.

Even so, we'll both probably find our way back there. Even with the disappointment, it is still the World's Second Best Burrito place.

Just out of curiousity...

Now that 665 same-sex couples have been married in San Francisco, does anyone feel that their marriage is suddenly on the rocks? That the institution that they entered into is crumbling around them? Cuz, you know, if the sanctity of one's marriage depends on whether or not gay people can get married, I think there ought to be some rethinking on whether one ought to be married in the first place.

The shrub speaks out

In this article about the recent Massachusetts court ruling to allow gay marriages, we have this paraphrase from Bush:

In his State of the Union address last month, Bush said he was prepared to support a constitutional amendment to prevent "activist judges" from "redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives."

Eh, if it wasn't for 'activists judges', Bush wouldn't be president. The will of the people clearly indicated for Gore, but the judges gave the presidency to Bush. Talk about short memory and ingratitude.

Say it isn't so!

Barbie and Ken are splitsville. But gah, you'd think a woman who has been an astronaut/teacher/doctor/vet/rockstar would clue in and not take 43 years to discover Ken just wasn't ready for marriage. But good on her for finally getting her act together and dumping the committment-phobic Ken and hooking up with an Aussie! One named Blaine! You go girl!

Response from Evol Very Big Satellite Company

I've lost my permalinks in the blog template update and so you'll have to scroll down to find the initial letter I wrote to Evol Very Big Satellite Company about their sucky service. Anyway, this is their response.

Hello Seema G,

Thank you for your E-mail.

Firstly I would like to apologize for all of the problems you have been having with our services. It is not very common to have so many problems with the analog services(Basic/Basic Plus/Entertainment Plus) and it is very unfortunate that you have had so many troubling experiences with us in the recent past.

Our equipment office at your apartment complex is where we send out the cable feed to your apartment. If something breaks in the equipment office we do have to send a technician out as quickly as possible to inspect and then try to fix the situation. However, depending on what has gone wrong, that technician may not be able to fix the issue immediately. The access card message you received on your screen is an example of something the technician is not always able to fix when he visits the apartment complex.

Usually the equipment has no problems at all and generally we receive very few complaints or phone calls about our analog services, so I again apologize for the problems and hopefully our technicians have resolved the issue and you have no more troubles.

The local channels should not be going out while it is raining outside unless your area receives poor reception and we have your local channels routed digitally through our satellite dish there. We do this in some areas where reception is bad so our customers do not have to watch through "snow" on the local channels. Your area may be such an area if you are getting replace access card messages and the picture is locking up.

The demand for the Entertainment Plus service is very high and most of our properties (and customers) are wanting the service. They are not happy with the Basic Plus service and want more channels, yet do not want to have a cable box installed with a surplus of 100 channels. The Entertainment Plus service is a happy medium between the two. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the Basic Plus service at the apartments where we have Entertainment Plus. This is due to the fact that analog cables can only have one signal going through them at one time.

When we provide Entertainment Plus service, it is over an analog signal. The Basic service is that same signal. The reason you do not get Entertainment Plus when ordering Basic Plus service is due to a "trap" that we install on the line. That trap is removed only when a customer orders the Entertainment Plus service. We have no traps that can allow only certain channels, just certain frequencies. Entertainment Plus and Basic service are on different frequencies, so the trap will stop Entertainment Plus from coming in when its installed, and when removed allows Entertainment Plus to come in.

That is the long answer on why we cannot provide Basic Plus and Entertainment Plus at the same apartment complex. I hope that in the near future, there is a technology available to us that would allow us to provide multiple types of analog services at the same apartment complex, however right now we are unable to do this unfortunately.

We do value you as a customer with us. Any time you have any troubles with our service, call us at 1-800-555-5555 then dial option 1, option 3, option 4 to reach the repair line. There is usually no hold times past 7pm CST and the repair line is open until 9pm CST. Any customer service representative will be more than glad to credit you for time that your services are down.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to E-mail us back.

Best regards,
Very Big Satellite Television Company

John Kerry

Instead of your regularly scheduled shallow blog content, I bring you John Kerry's voting record. I bring this to your attention because it seems there's an impression out there that John Kerry is presidential. Or something. And while I have all due respect for a man who braved the rice paddies of South Asia (which is more than you can say for our current commander-in-chief), I have to ask, if your job is to legislate for the United States, shouldn't you show up for work? If any of us only showed up 28 percent of the time to the office, our asses would be out the door already.

And so yes, I still think Howard Dean is the man. For one thing, he's a heck of lot more moderate than Kerry, who apparently votes more liberally than Ted Kennedy (who would have thunk it?), and I just can't get over the fact that Kerry doesn't vote. Obviously Virginia and Tennessee don't think it matters.

The truth is, Kerry's currently the front runner, but I've yet to see a good reason why he, and not Dean, ought to be up there. If it's an image issue, then I think people need to get over it. Stop looking at "who can beat Bush"; we need someone who can get the job done and that means showing up for work.

Not feeling flouncy anymore, despite being up very late last night. I've had plenty of caffeine. Other than that, nothing else to report. You can all come out of hiding now.

Cranky Statement

Just a word to the wise: I don't take insults to my state lightly. If you've never been here, not even to the airport, and if you have no intention of ever coming here, take it elsewhere. I'm not interested in hearing it, and believe it or not, it actually hurts my feelings to an extent because even though you think you're insulting my state, you're also insulting me. It's seriously annoying when someone says they'd never come to visit because of where a person live; in fact, it makes me realize that perhaps I'm not important as important as the geography is. This is my home, I've been here for six years now, and I actually know what it's like to live and work here and I'm not interested in what you think. In fact, you've probably got it all wrong.

Letter to Very Big Evol (tm) Satellite Company

Right, so more belligerent than I wanted to be, but I'm that frustrated. I doubt anything will get done, but at least I wrote to them and said, "You are not meeting expectations." Gah. I sound like such an MBA.

---

Dear Sir/Madam:

I'm writing to give some feedback concerning the service provided and in addition, would like to request some additional programming options for those of us who are not big television watchers but what would like to have more options than local viewing.

In terms of customer service, I've been very unhappy from the first day when I signed up. Even to sign up for the new service required that I stay on hold for over an hour before a representative was able to take my order.

In another instance, I was receiving a message on my television screen to change a video card. This message obscured half of my screen and I was unable to watch programming. This went on for over a week before I was able to contact someone at Very Big Satellite Company.

In another instance, I never received a first bill and was charged a late fee when I received the second bill. It took me over a week of calling and being on hold for 45 minutes or more on each occasion before the situation was resolved.

On more than a few occasions, the satellite feed has 'frozen' for 15 to 20 minutes, if not longer, on the local channels, and whenever it rains, the stations go out. Once the local channels froze for over an hour and there was absolutely no weather at all. The non-local channels did not have this problem, but that's not comforting when you want to watch the local channels. I was unable to get any assistance on this problem and was sent through many, many phone menus before being informed I'd have to call during business hours.

However, calling at business hours means being on hold for at least 45 minutes and while it may be okay once or twice to have to be on hold for that length of time, every time I call in to Very Big Satellite Company, it's at least that much.

Finally, I'm unhappy with the programming changes at my complex. I subscribed to the Basic Plus package for $11.99 in August, which includes the local channels plus A&E, CNN, TBS, MSNBC, and the ABC Family Channel. That option was removed from my service options, leaving me with a choice of a $35/month package with 50+ channels or just local service. I chose local service because I don't watch enough television to justify over 50 channels.

I'm not sure, at this point, what the advantage of keeping your service is over getting an antenna, since I'm receiving very little value for the money in terms of service and programming. I chose Very Big Satellite Company rather than going with an antenna because I was expecting a certain level of service and consistency in reception and programming. My expectations on this level has not been met.

I'm also writing to ask for reinstatement of the Basic Plus package at my apartment complex. While I enjoyed the free satellite preview you provided with us, I realized that I would not watch most of the channels, hence didn't feel the need to subscribe to it, but I did enjoy having the option of TBS and A&E since there are shows there that I do enjoy and would watch regularly. However, those two additional channels are not worth $35/month.

At this point, if asked, I would not recommend Very Big Satellite Company to anyone, nor would I choose another apartment complex that used the service exclusively.

Thank you for your consideration.

Test posting to see if I can't get the RSS feed back online. In the meantime, there's always Atom, which seems to have its own personality quirks, but is definitely, eh, fully functional at the moment.

So I've pretty much got this layout the way I want it, or rather, as much as I'm willing to fight the CSS. At some point, I'm going to start gradually redoing my site in CSS. The site design and colors won't change too much -- from a branding point of view, too much change isn't a good thing, especially when there isn't anything too significantly wrong with the current image (or so jemima tells me).

Ideally, what I'm planning to do is streamline navigation even more than it already is. Currently, my goal is to have every index page reachable within 3 clicks of any other page. I'd like to cut that down to two, but I haven't figured out a way to do it yet. When I worked for Very Big Insurance Company, I used DHTML to create drop-down menu trees but in the wide untamed crazy world of the web, I'm not sure I want to do that; too many opportunities for browsers to break -- plus it is akin to mystery meat navigation; at Very Big Insurance Company, people were like, "I have to click on the + sign? Why?"

The current overall navigation of the site, however, I think, is very clean. Not a lot of images, so things move quickly. I'm still on dial-up so I design for dial-up. So keeping javascript and images to a minimum is also pretty important.

Yes, so in other words? Haven't a clue, only know that I'm going to do something.

New blog template, courtesy of CSS. though it's very apparent that I'm not the guru jemima is. There are still a few things I need to tweak here and there, but for now, this will suffice. Let me know if this layout breaks anyone's browser; I plan to go completely CSS at the site in the next six months or so. I just thought I'd start small, since it's probably been at least a year since I last worked with style sheets.

For Jemima and Miss Barr

Q: How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest?
A: They Take The Psycho Path

Q: What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete Wall?
A: Dam!

Q: Where Do You Find a Dog With No Legs?
A: Right Where You Left Him.

The Nine Days Queen

Bjorn gave me Lady Jane for my birthday and of course, I watched it pretty much immediately. I've been meaning to review it since then.

I admit to being biased, having read the novelization of the film years ago, but have never seen the film. The movie stars Cary Elwes and Helena Bonham Carter. Also, an added bonus, Patrick Stewart as Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk; the movie was released in 1986, so it was pre-Captain Picard days, but not by much. The film is after Lady Jane Grey, also known as the Nine Days Queen, having reigned under duress in 1553 after the death of Edward VI.

I thought the casting of Helena Bonham Carter (henceforth referred to as HBC) was excellent, simply because she came across as mousy, tiny and quiet in the film and Lady Jane Grey was certainly that. Cary Elwes, on the other hand, was distracting to me. Not just because he's cute, but because I expected every other word out of his mouth to be along the lines of "As you wish." Poor CE; he's hopelessly typecast -- I couldn't even take him seriously during his guest appearances on the "X-Files" in season 9.

But back to the film. As far as historical accuracy, the film hits all of the right notes in the little details. For instances, many of the famous little incidents of Jane's life were accurately reproduced. For instance, the incident where Mary Tudor's lady-in-waiting courtsies in front of the chapel is an authentic anecdote, as is a scene where Jane's parents are hunting and she is staying indoors to study. Lady Jane Grey was a marvelous student, extremely erudite, and probably on par with her royal cousins, Edward VI, and Elizabeth Tudor, if not surpassing both in intelligence. But once again, I digress.

CE played Guildford Dudley, Jane's hapless husband. In the film he's portrayed as a drunkard and a womanizer -- at least until he's forced to marry Jane under a scheme by his father. In RL, I imagine Dudley was nothing more or less than a mama's boy. The dislike Jane and Guildford took to each other is indeed historically accurate. They despised each other from day one.

Guildford's father was the Duke of Northumberland, Protector of the Realm while the King was in his minority. Seeing as Edward was about to die, Norfolk was afraid of not only losing his power, but also that Mary Tudor, the heiress, would restore England to Rome, thus stifling the Protestant religion. Northumberland planned to disinherit Mary and also the younger sister, Elizabeth, and instead have Edward pass the crown on to his Protestant cousin, Jane Grey (granddaughter of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII). By marrying Jane to his youngest son, Northumberland would be assured of remaining in power. The insurrection against Mary Tudor failed, and eventually Northumberland was executed. Mary Tudor, however, kept Guildford and Jane prisoner in the Tower until February of 1554, when they were both executed (Jane in the privacy of Tower Green, Guildford on Tower Hill). Reluctant as Mary had been to allow the execution, the pressure from Spain (she wished to marry her cousin, Phillip) finally forced Mary's hand, as well as an insurrection which had taken place during the previous fall.

These basic facts remain true in the movie, including the sad scene of Jane's execution where, blindfolded, she is unable to find the block, until a priest helps her lay her head down. However, the movie diverges there by playing up a romance between Guildford and Jane which most surely did not exist; Jane most probably found Guildford to be whiny, indulgent and annoying. In her few days as queen, she stood up to Northumberland and denied Guildford the right to be crowned king. Nor did Jane see Guildford before his execution, though she did watch from her prison window.

Also, unlike the movie which shows Jane and Guildford in a dank prison in the Tower, this was most assuredly not true. Mary Tudor had some respect and affection for her young cousin and had no wish to execute her. Jane lived in a house on the Tower Green and had several servants waiting on her, as well as a handsome allowance. It was actually a very comfortable existence for Jane, and no doubt, she could have continued on in this way, if not for her father's meddling (for whom her mother begged for mercy, but apparently, did not intercede on Jane's behalf).

The movie also shows Jane and Guildford working together to come up with a real schilling, among other things. In other words, Jane wanted to do some good. I have no doubt that this indeed true, but whether any real legislation was passed during her reign is very doubtful; most of it was spent holed up in the Tower wondering whether Mary Tudor could be captured or not. Most certainly, a 'real' schilling was never cast by order of Jane the Quene; there simply wasn't time or place for that. The movie also gave Jane much more power than she truly had; in essence, despite her denial of the crown to Guildford, she was very much Northumberland's puppet and probably did not spend much time at all with the lords of her council.

The movie did downplay Jane's religious fanaticism (in general, the movie avoid Jane's piety and air of self-righteousness; anecdotes of Jane reveal an intelligent, thoughtful young woman, but probably one who was insufferable to be around as well). Both Edward VI and Jane Grey were as zealous Protestants as Mary Tudor was Catholic. Just as Mary's aim was to restore England to Rome, both Edward and Jane were determined to see their faith succeed as well; in that sense, these three people were very much alike and rigid in their beliefs. Of the four Tudor rulers to follow Henry VIII, only Elizabeth was moderate in her beliefs. So for this aspect of Jane's character to be omitted and softened does not quite ring true for me.

Finally, one little nitpick: Mary Tudor's coif was inaccurate for the time period. Coifs of that time period were not pointed, but rather rounded and close to the head with a veil flowing from the back. A hat might be worn on occasion, but the wimple-style Mary wore in the movie is probably more in line with that of her great grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, than the going style of the 1550s.

All in all, it's a good movie with some good performances, and, if you can forget the nonsense about the schilling and realize the romance between Guildford and Jane is bogus, then consider it two hours well spent. It is no more inaccurate than most historical films and in this case, I can forgive them, for the true story of Jane and Guildford is hardly romantic, nor was Jane herself a particularly likeable individual either. So I can give the film that allowance and say that if you do have a interest in the Tudor era, this is another movie to add to the list of "must watch" films.

****

And, I just have to squee on a totally related note, but there's apparently a television movie on Henry VIII in the UK that I never knew about? See here.

For someone who really doesn't like talking on the phone that much, I've been on the phone an awful lot these past few days. So a big thank you :-)