Worst Ever
I saw the movie "Bridget Jones' Diary" during my freshmen year of college. It has since held the #1 spot on my worst-of-all-time list. Recently, however, I saw "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," which catapulted straight to the top of the list and finally usurped Bridget and her diary. This movie is absolutely AWFUL. Even the normally adorable Luke Wilson wasn't enough to redeem it even a little smidge. DO NOT watch this movie unless your goal is to spend an hour and a half in the most pained, useless state possible.
update on previous post
So my aforementioned plan of doing something new every day this week turned out semi-well. I already mentioned my new things for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Thursday I tried sesame chicken for the first time when I got chinese food for dinner. It was a welcome break from my normal lo mein or orange chicken. On Friday I completely forgot about it until it had already rolled after midnight and into Saturday. I was a little annoyed that I broke the streak at the end, but four days in a row isn't too shabby.
news from melbourne
Rafael Nadal was upset today in the Australian Open, but at least he looked good. Nadal was sporting manpris (capris for men). Not many men can pull this look off, but it's generally unbelievably hot when they do. Nadal is no exception.
It's Official
This week I became an official grown-up. It’s taken the better part of 24 years, but I am now officially financially self sufficient. I guess I’ve been mostly taking care of myself for quite awhile now, but until this week my parents still paid my car insurance. On Monday when I paid for February’s insurance myself, it was like the ending of an era. When I placed the envelope into the mail box I was acutely aware of this bittersweet transformation. It’s good to be completely taking care of myself, but it still sucks to be out $120/ month. (In the interest of full disclosure I’m actually paying my dad...since I’m under 25 it’s much cheaper to stay on his policy and pay him the money than to get my own policy.)
So after this new experience on Monday, I decided to do something new every single day this week. I’m not sure how it will go, but so far so good. Here’s how it’s shaping up:
Monday-paid my own car insurance for the first time
Tuesday-after spending half of my work day freezing my @$$ off, discovered I have a talent for typing quite well with my mittens on. and not gloves, but mittens...i’m just that good :)
Wednesday-got a french press coffee maker and made my own coffee. it turned out surprisingly well.
Maybe if I can keep up this pace I’ll let you know on Friday how the rest of the week turned out.
oh geez
I just got to work, but forgot to bring clothes to change into since I wasn't able to go back to my apartment earlier in the day. Luckily, there's certainly no shortage of clothes in my car, but I was running late so I just picked whatever. Well, I just got inside and realized I do not match AT ALL. I'm wearing red pants, a black short sleeve shirt, a navy blue long sleeve shirt over that with a light blue and yellow stripe on the front, and I'm carrying a green purse. I look ridiculous. At least I'll spend my entire shift wearing a white lab coat so no one will really be able to tell.
On a somewhat related note, the other day I was thinking of how I really like wearing the combo of black and brown. Some people still don't think it goes, but I think it looks great when you do it right.
2 ridiculous things
1. I have a new goal for the rest of the winter. It might be outside the realm of possibility, but I don't care. I am going to try to go through the entire winter without buying an ice scraper. It's been warmer than usual so I haven't been faced with too many frosty window scraping moments. A couple of times I've used the edge of a gift card and a couple other times I've just turned on the defrost and let it go to town. Last night there was some seriously thick ice, but I just borrowed from a coworker leaving at the same time I was. I may not make it, but it's like my own little way to defy winter.
2. Today I listened to an archived radio report that reviewed the American version of "The Office" on the day it premiered a couple of years ago. The television critic totally trashed the show. He said that Steve Carrell as Michael Scott fell short, and that the actor who plays Dwight was way off the mark. He said it was forced and not funny, and that the only tolerable moments were the scenes between Pam and Jim. He concluded his review by saying this show should be avoided and added to the many other failures of British copycat shows.
What a moron. Everyone knows "The Office" is completely hilarious. I'm so glad this guy has totally been proved wrong.
first time for everything...
This weekend I saw "Stranger Than Fiction," and it was the first Will Ferrel movie I've ever liked. I don't mind him as a real-life person or in Saturday Night Live sketches, but until now his big screen characters have without fail been unbelievably obnoxious. I'm glad he's turning a corner.
what's going on across the pond?
In the past couple of days some really interesting news has come from Britain. First, some sort of authority or commission is deciding this week whether or not to allow hybrid genetics experiments, ie. whether or not to allow scienties to make part-human/part-animal embryos. Scientists want to experiment with stem cells by creating embryos made of human DNA and either cow or rabbit DNA. That's new.
Also this week, there's a huge commotion over the commercial consumption of goods produced from cloned animals. I don't know exactly why this is such a big deal...it doesn't matter to me if I'm eating sirloin from the original or the copy, but whatever. Apprently it's a big deal over there. Crazy Brits!
sometimes things just work
Everyone knows that sometimes things just don't work out how you thought they would. However, sometimes there's some silver lining and they do. Here's two cases in point:
1) Over Christmas I flew across the country and was prepared with all forms of entertainment, including books, laptop with movies, and ipod. The only problem was that I forgot my ear phones, which basically renders them all (well, except the books) useless. The day after I arrived I realized I also forgot my razor. I didn't really want to spend money on this stuff, but my only other option was to be hairy and un-entertained. I went to Wal-Mart and could hardly believe it when I found a pack of quality razors on sale for $5, and they came with free in ear head phones! It's an extremely odd combination that I wouldn't necessarily think would be sold together as a package deal. I was so pumped. The world worked out exactly as I needed it to in that instant.
2) This morning I made a peanut butter and jelly on toast to bring to work, but was running late so I didn't bring anything else. I figured I could get something from the vending machine if I felt like it. During my lunch break I decided to get a small bag of cheetos and a 20 oz. diet pepsi, which totals $1.55. I was so bummed because I only had $1.45 in cash on me. I searched my clothes pockets and every pocket and section of my purse but couldn't find that last elusive dime. In a final, somewhat hopeless attempt I decided to take a quick look around the break room. That's when I saw it...a nice, shiny dime in the corner of the room under a chair. It was perfect.
These may be small instances, but sometimes that's enough.
hmmm....
With the coming of the new year, SEED magazine ran an article titled, "The Vanguard of Science: We picked a few of the most exciting research areas and asked leading scientists: Where is your field heading in 2007?"
Here's what Yale University's Paul Bloom had to say about Developmental Psychology:
For a long time, developmental psychologists have had little to say about questions such as when children start to believe in God, what they think about the relationship between body and soul, and how they judge people in terms of good or evil. But this is changing, in large part because of theoretical developments in fields such as evolutionary theory and cross-cultural psychology. We can now make substantive claims about why religious belief and moral thought exist in the first place, and derive some interesting predictions about what should and should not be innate. And we can test these predictions using the same sorts of methods that have been so successful in exploring the origins of physical and social understanding. The big news in 2007 is that we should see the first published studies that explore moral and religious thought in very young children, perhaps in babies.
I don't know about you, but I am very interested and anxious to see what Mr. Bloom and his colleages discover this year!
Tonight...
...Tonight I saw "Flags of Our Fathers." If you don't know, "Flags" is about the Battle of Iwo Jima of WWII. The follow-up movie is "Letters from Iwo Jima," and tells the same story from the Japanese point of view. Both movies were set up at the beginning of "Flags" where a character says something like "we all want to make things simple: good vs. evil, heroes and villains. There are lots of villains, but they're rarely who we think they are." They didn't mention anything like that for the rest of the movie, but it's the basis of "Letters." I can't wait to see it.
"Flags of Our Fathers" was really great. Sometime during the film I was suddenly struck with the thought that in another 15 or 20 years there won't be any WWII veterans left to tell their stories firsthand. It's cheesy, but I was really moved by several older people who, when the movie ended, just sat there staring at the screen until the last credits rolled. If not actually in the war, they were alive at the time, and I was wondering what their stories were. I didn't really expect for the movie to make me think about these things, but I felt so proud of my Grandad who was in WWII, my Grandpa who was in the Korean War, and my dad who was in the Navy and spent time on a submarine off the coast of Russia during the Cold War. Then then I felt kinda weird because I realized that I don't know even one person currently serving in the military.
...Tonight I went to a Catholic Mass. Every time I drive by this Catholic church I notice how beautiful it is. One thing I love about cities, particularly New York City, is all of the gorgeous Cathedrals. I love how at any time you can walk into them and sit in the quiet with the candles lit. There's this great transcendental quality about it, and so much history involved. I've never really gone to a service though. Tonight it was so beautiful inside, even more than it usually would be since this week is the Feast of Epiphany and so the Christmas lights and decorations were still up. The weird thing was that I did not at all feel comfortable, but yet I felt extremely comforted. Everything that was happening was so foreign to me, but at the same time there was something unmistakably familiar about it. I think I liked it.
...Tonight I went to Panera. Unfortunately they no longer have the fuji apple chicken salad, which was my favorite. Apparently it's seasonal. Whatever. There is good news though...I tried the fandango salad and it is fantastic!!
Movie Review: The Family Stone
Right before Christmas I finally saw the movie "The Family Stone." I was anxious to see this movie simply becuase of the extreme opinions I had heard about it. A few friends said it was one of the worst movies ever and not to waste any time watching it. However, a few other friends said it was one of the best movies they had ever seen. After watching it, I found myself agreeing with the latter.
I wouldn't necessarily call it a Christmas movie...it's more like a movie that uses Christmas as a back drop. The brilliance of this movie is that it's completely character driven. Despite some big name stars, there's nothing flashy about it at all...it's just a story about a family getting together for Christmas. The older I get the more I appreciate the complexities involved when a familiy who hardly ever sees each other is suddenly spending extended time in a confined area. I guess some people consider this boring but the characters are so rich; they just pull you in to the story. It's a beautifully made movie and I recommend it to everyone.
2 things
1) A couple of months ago I mentioned in a blog post that I wished Apple made cell phones, thus completing the Apple suite of technological gadgets. This morning I heard in the news that Apple's 2007 ipod, which will roll out later this year, is actually an ipod and cell phone combined. Go figure.
2) I'm currently reading Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." (My underline feature is currently unavailable, so sorry I had to put that title in quotations.) It's been quite a while since I last read it, and I'm enjoying it even more this second time. At one point a characters says
"I don't know. Sometimes I think it's better to suffer bitter unhappiness and to fight and to scream out, and even to suffer that
terrible pain, than just to be...safe. At least she knows she's living."
Now granted, the character who says this is an old maid talking with another old maid about the experience of childbirth. Even so, I find myself discovering that it resonates so deeply and is so true with life in general.
what in the mundo
It's 3:17 and I can't sleep. I hope I won't be too tired throughout the day. I used to be able to stay up late and/or all night and be just fine, but now that I'm "old" we'll have to see if I can still pull it off. In the meantime I'm settling to read, myspace**, and watch more of the first season of "Felicity."
**I think it's hilarious that the word --myspace-- which of course is noun meaning an interactive networking site, has become a verb. I guess it's not really a big deal at all, but it always cracks me up a bit when i hear someone say they spent time "myspacing", or are gonna go "myspace."
The More Loving One
I've never really been one for poetry. I think it's because my high school English teacher never focused on it or made us study it beyond the bare bones requirements of scansion patterns. She said that there's no standard by which to grade a poem since it's all "art" and anything could be a poem. So instead we focused on literature, essays, themes, etc. At the time this didn't bother me, but as I get older I am beginning to feel more and more cheated. I'm just now sort of discovering poetry and I'm completely surprised at how much I like it. Here's a poem I ran across today that really resonated with me.
It's called "The More Loving One" by W.H. Auden.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
chew on that for a bit.
it's a new year
It's a brand new year. Finally. Hopefully this year will bring many new and great experiences. Also, I hope to be able to cross a few things from my life to-do list this year. Most things on the list aren't super ambitious and serious things...they're just things I would like to do one day. 2004 was mildly successful, as I managed to learn how to surf and also to be in a movie and on television. 2005 was actually a pretty good year as far as the list was concerned. I was able to cross off the following: run a marathon, ride a mechanical bull, skinnydip in the Pacific, fly first class, and spend New Year's Eve in Times Square. In 2006 I only crossed one thing off the list, and it wasn't even that great of a thing...on March 8th I watched an entire season of "Alias" in one sitting. It won't change the world or anything, but it was really fun and I'm glad I did it. Hopefully I'll make some more head way this year. I recently added two more things to the list.
1) attend the US Open (tennis, not golf)
2) read all of the books on the New York Public Library's "Books of the Century" list (20th century)
This year there's some serious potential with some of the list entries...more than a couple of things are definitely possible. Of course some others are definitley not possible and I'll have to wait until later in life to accomplish them. That's ok though. I just have to remember that a lil' dab'll do ya.
