TOP 5 IDEAL JOBS

These are my Top 5 Dream Jobs, which means that i'd rather work these than not have to work!

Host of Jeopardy
Audio Book Reader
Assembly Line Worker at a Stuffed Animal Factory
Librarian
Dog Show Judge

Conclusion: nerd

Tony Danza, Brendan Fraser, and Ludacris?!

Movie review: Crash

This movie is NUTS! There's a huge cast and all sorts of overlapping storylines (think Traffic) focused on the collision of races in Los Angeles. It's about who you think you are, who others think you are, and the intersecting of those perceptions. Don Cheadle delivers as usual, as does Sandra Bullock, who for once plays an unlikeable character. Actually everyone delivers in this cast, there were no weak links, even the really minor characters were memorable (Tony Danza, if you can believe it).

The standouts were Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton. Dillon plays a racist cop dealing w/a crappy situation at home and taking it out on any black person he sees. He's a total a-hole and plunges the depths of ick when he molests Thandie Newton's character on a traffic stop. Newton plays a wealthy black woman living in the aftermath of the incident and its effect on her marriage. Later, Dillon responds to a traffic accident where Newton is trapped in a soon-to-combust car. She FREAKS when she sees him (as well she should) and he has to come to grips with what he did to her and save her life all at once. i don't think i breathed, blinked, or had a heartbeat thru the whole scene. And my mouth was hanging open. The two of them are flawless and it's crazy-powerful. Dillon's performance reminds me of Ed Norton in American History X, playing such an incredibly hateful character and yet allowing a turnaround that makes you hope for him, if not sympathize. Newton deftly plays the gamut- drunk snob, Dillon's victim, angry wife, repentant, and straight raw fear.

And that was just one story line among many! There were more points of breathless pure shock and hanging-open mouths, but i won't give them away. The movie ends with some story lines resolved and others wide open or hopeless, but thanks to Terrence Howard and Ludacris (yes, Ludacris!), you feel at least some peace. Thus- i highly recommend renting this movie: 5 out of 5 heartbeats.

If By Shoes You Mean UNDERPANTS!

Movie Review: "In Her Shoes"

On the surface, this movie is about sisters who love to hate each other. If Toni Collette were not in it, i wouldn't have given it a second glance. But, i trust her, so i went and saw it with Danielle. Thankfully, it was more than just a bickering-sisters chick flick, w/a really good love story mixed in for Toni's character, Rose. It's about a family coming to terms w/a suicide and everything else is a direct or indirect result of that incident. Relative unknown Mark Feuerstein is flawless as Simon Stein, the coworker and foodie that pursues Rose with such confidence and tenderness that i now have a huge crush on him. Toni, of course, is fantastic, as is Shirley MacLaine, who never does what i expect her to do and always brings such honest nobility to her roles.
Cameron Diaz is Rose's slutty sister Maggie, who does the ultimate betrayal (as in, 'oh no she di-nt!') as further proof of how screwed up she is. Cameron Diaz rarely surprises me, and this was no exception. She's niether bad nor good in this movie, but whatever shortcomings she had as an actress, the director attempted to make up for in the amount of camera time devoted to her butt and legs. Seriously. No one needed to be convinced that Maggie is the 'hot sister,' and tho i expected gratutious Cameron-in-her-underwear shots in the beginning to establish character, i didn't need 90 minutes of deliberate shots of her butt in a bikini, in a thong, in shorts, in a mini skirt, in scrubs, etc. to convince me that i'm flabby and pale and she's not. The movie should've been called 'In Her Underwear.'
Nevertheless, it was worth my $9.50, mostly because of Toni, Mark and Shirley, and excellent use of these poems by e e cummings and Elizabeth Bishop. i give it 4 out of 5 butt shots.

Superhero

If i had special powers i'd be selfish,
and make the ground always
warm beneath my feet, like sun-toasted sand.
If you were walking next to me,
you'd have warm-ground too,
that's as far as i'd go
with my gift: my side,
within arm's reach.
i'd have all the world.

Throw Down Your Heads

"Mr. Incredible and Elmo said they were taken into custody at gunpoint and driven in handcuffs by police car to the front of the Kodak Theatre. There they claim they were paraded on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before shocked tourists and other boulevard impersonators."

Do Me A Favorite

Postmark your voter registration by TODAY so you can vote YES on Proposition 73. You can download and print the registration here and learn more about Prop. 73 here. It's all i've been working on for the past 2 months so i'll be really sad if it doesn't pass, and i'll send you cookies if you vote!

A Tiny Little Party

CONGRATS TO MATT AND BRENDA BECAUSE THEY ARE HAVING A BABY!
And they're going to name it Kallie even if it's a boy! Well, they didn't explicitly say that, but i can read between the lines. (cue Lloyd Christmas: "So you're tellin' me there's a chance!") Anyway, YAY! The next generation of labbies begins. Make way, world.

TOP 5 FUNNIEST PEOPLE ON TV

A very tough task, so i decided to restrict this list to the funniest people currently on TV (sorry Kramer). Choosing only one Bluth and one of Reno's finest was very difficult. As always, i'm open for suggestions or compliments. So, in no particular order.....

Steve Carrel, as Michael Scott in The Office
Will Arnett, as Gob Bluth in Arrested Development
Thomas Lennon, as Lt. Jim Dangle in Reno 911 ->
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
Seth McFarlane, Peter & Stewie Griffin, Family Guy

Honorable Mention- Rob Corddry, The Daily Show

I'll take 'Friends Who Leave The Country' for $800, Alex.

The darndest thing happened when i looked up the definition of Thailand- here's what it said:

Thai·land - (tlnd, -lnd) Formerly Si·am (s-m).
1. A country of southeast Asia on the Gulf of Thailand (formerly the Gulf of Siam), an arm of the South China Sea. Various Thai kingdoms were founded from the 13th century on, frequently coming into conflict with neighboring Burmese and Cambodian powers. Siam remained an absolute monarchy until 1932, when the king was compelled to accept a constitution, and the country was renamed Thailand in 1939. Thailand was occupied by the Japanese in World War II, and most of its numerous postwar governments were controlled by the military. Bangkok is the capital and the largest city. Population: 59,396,000.
2. The country your friends Whitney and Tannan take off for without blogging about it, or emailing you about it, thereby nullifying any sympathetic excitement you might have had about their overseas opportunity in comparison to your own boring life in suburbia.
3. The country wherefrom Kallie will receive NO trinket, gift, or souvenier, should said travellers happen to check this blog while there. :]

Reminder

"You're about as useful as a poopie flavored lollipop!" -Patches O'Houlihan

i went to my favorite lunch spot yesterday, The Beach Hut Deli (overpriced, but the ambiance and staff remind me too much of San D to stay away), which plays good movies like 'Dumb & Dumber' and 'Zoolander' on mute, w/the subtitles on. Yesterday they were playing 'Dodgeball,' so i sat by myself in a booth for an hour, staring at a silent tv, cracking up. i had to remind myself to eat! i totally forgot how funny that movie is! And not just hilarious- incredibly endearing too, b/c of all the lovable losers. And i'd forgotten that Jason Bateman is in it! i'm going to buy it on my lunch break today.

Top 10 Lyricists

Anybody can write a great single, but the following people have consistently shown a mastery of song lyricosity. i've included samples of why. There was no way i was going to limit this to 5; this was a difficult list to narrow down and to find good examples for, so arguments and/or better examples are welcome.

Elliot Smith: "Now on the bus/Nearly touching this dirty retreat/Falling out 6th and Powell a dead sweat in my teeth"

Cole Porter: "I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences/Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses/I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences/Don't fence me in."

Natalie Merchant: "Ophelia was a tempest cyclone/A goddamn hurricane/Your common sense, your best defense/Lay wasted and in vain"

John Lennon: "It's getting hard to be someone/But it all works out/It doesn't matter much to me"

Bright Eyes: "This is the first day of my life/I swear I was born right in the doorway/I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed/They're spreading blankets on the beach"

Elton John: "Jesus freaks out in the street/Handing tickets out for god/Turning back she just laughs/The boulevard is not that bad"

Death Cab for Cutie: "I strain my eyes and try/To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites/.../do they collide?" I ask and you smile./With my feet on the dash/The world doesn't matter."

Willie Nelson: "'Cause you paid the price to come too far,/ Just to wind up where you are, /And you're still just across the borderline"

Lauryn Hill: "Coursing through my senses, he's prevailing /Floating through the space of my design /Drowning me to find my inside sailing /Drinking in the mainstream of his mind"

Derren Raser: "Girls used to wear skirts long and i don't know what's gone wrong/Now they've all got legs/That seems to make them want to run away/Maybe that's why i can't get a single one to stay"

100 Years of Everyone Having The Same Friggin Name

Today i finally finished the aptly-named One Hundred Years of Solitude. While i agree that it's one of the 5 greatest novels EVER, and i understand Latin American naming traditions, i maintain that giving FIFTEEN characters (not counting the 17+ assassinated Aurelianos) the same FOUR names is just plain MEAN. i was so confused i began to use the family tree as my bookmark and thus ruined the surprises of some of the later generations' breedings.

And since i'm a literary masochist, i've begun to read The Sound and the Fury, in which 4 characters share 2 names, 1 character changes the name he used to share with his uncle, another character's name disappears from the family vocabulary, and it's all 'explained' in perspectives that have no sense of chronology!

Why do i punish myself? Because in high school i faked book reports on The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Great Expectations, and Catch-22....among a hundred others.

Life Without Friends = Dog Shows

On Saturday evening i found myself thoroughly engrossed in Animal Planet's broadcast of the Eukanuba Tournament of Champions. Did you know it takes 5 hours to groom a Maltese for a dog show? And blood hounds and other 'scent' breeds not only have big noses for smelling, their long ears and droopy faces also function in scent detection by trapping the scent in all the skin and keeping it closer to the nose. And of course, they have short legs to keep them closer to the ground/smell. (Intelligent Design? i think the word your looking for is Freaking-Genius-Omniscient-Creator Design) My personal favorite? The puli. If you really love me you'll get me one.
Dog shows are fun. i'm a nerd.

Triple-Deluxe-Roundhouse-Axel

Today I took Kallie ice skating for the first time in her life and...like everything monumental we do...it went undocumented. You will not find any picture of Kallie the first time she cut into the ice in Roseville, CA. The ice skating trip was a great success full of sweaty palms, small children being checked into the glass, hypothermia and plenty of laughter. However, it was during the drive home that I realized how important my camera could have been today. So I have decided to take a page from the book of Jason Niemeyer. Let it be known from this day forward that I will be more camera cautious. I might as well use some of that great schooling I spent oodles on.

Top 5 Things I Wish I Were Doing This Weekend

>Going to Winter and Jason's White Trash Party and finally having the opportunity to wear that Raiders jersey and snakeprint pleather miniskirt i keep hidden in my closet

>Seeing "Good Night, and Good Luck"

>Making cookies and having Josh actually eat them

>Going bowling with Martha Stewart (my new bff) and WINNING, then getting gelato afterward

>Painting the walls of the apartment green and orange and purple

(speaking of Martha Stewart, Josh's new nickname is Flaming Meringue)

It's official: i have sclerosis of the liver.

i'm on my 2nd bloody nose of the day. Well, bloody nostril, so it's half a nose. It's a bloody 'no'. Getting 2 bloody noses in a day doesn't do anything for my hyper-supressed tendency toward hypochondria. (Once i very nearly convinced myself i had testicular cancer.) Anyway, i've managed to calm down and wonder the following: When the first human got the first random bloody nose (or 'no'), they must have totally freaked out. They had to think their brain was dissolving or something. These days we know these things just happen for no reason, (kinda like babies) so we don't freak out (note: inappropriate use of 'we'), but what if we didn't? That would suck. Or blow, since we're talking about noses. Anyway, if i'm not back in 15 minutes, Winter and Bren share guardianship of the cat.

(k)al(lie)

Weekend Schmeekend

We spent Friday afternoon thru Sunday night at the Sacramento Convention Center at the National Youth Workers Conference. It was cool, but it meant getting up at 6am Saturday and Sunday, which i believe is actually against the will of the God who loves us. We got to spend more time w/Unfried AND got to hang out w/Josh Loesche. We also ran into Dave Nichols and Scott Ritter. We heard some good speakers including Captain Fascinating: Tony Campolo. Love him or hate him, he's one wicked-smart-crazy-Italian. The best speaker was Sue Thomas, an elderly deaf woman who worked for the FBI and is pretty stinking funny, not to mention darn Christian. We got to check out some really good music from Kendall Payne, 4th Avenue Jones, and Shane&Shane. Josh's description of 4th Ave. Jones: 'The Fugees dressed as the Black Eyed Peas rocking like Linkin Park.' Plus they had a violin. Pretty cool.

We also hung out w/my parents and Aunt Cindy and family friends the Stanleys. And i can now say i've met someone named Seamus. We had a good dinner w/them at Michaelangelo's (as usual) and got to drink some Jewel wine before we went back to get our youth-working on.

This is what i think about youth pastors: They are rabbits disguised as humans. They are constantly multiplying. Perhaps this is because they are all good-looking men with cute wives, but i think it's because the wives don't want to have to hang out w/the Junior High students so they get pregnant. In any case, any time there's a population of youth pastors, there's a population of babies. BabyGap owes much to the Church.

kal
Now for the Top 5......

(Belated) Top 5 Snacks

Handfuls of Cheerios with raisins and choco-chips
Nutella-&-Raspberry-Jam-Saltine-Cracker Sandwich
Cheezits
Apple slices with peanut butter
Graham crackers dipped in Yoplait's Boston Creme Pie yogurt

Runners up: every different variety of Cheezits