At least more people will boycott WalMart :]

A contact i've made through work has graciously added me to her mass-email list. She assumes that since i'm pro-life i'm also in agreement on all Conservative positions. (b/c apparently one can't be pro-life just b/c it's right) The most recent gem in my inbox was a petition to boycott businesses that aren't using the term 'Christmas' & are substituting it with 'Holidays.' Here's a little exerpt----
"Banning any mention of the word Christmas, Wal-Mart, Kmart & Target are attacking the reason for the season & discriminating against Christians! Your help is needed to keep Christmas rightfully honored in America! Using "Happy holidays!" as their lame politically correct excuse, corporate executives are suddenly in lock step with godless liberals conspiring to eradicate all things Christian. Don't let the chains get away with this anti-Christian bigotry! It is time we defend what has been GIVEN to us by GRACE!"
----i could go for days on what's wrong with all that, but i'll keep it simple: Do we really want Christmas 'rightfully honored' by being plastered all over WalMart? It's 'anti-Christian bigotry' to respect the fact that Jews and other religious groups are peacefully celebrating significant ecclesiastical events this season?? (Apparently they haven't read that part about Judaism and Christianity being cousins, & Christmas is a time for family!) Shouldn't we honor a gift of grace by graciously acknowledging other belief systems, as they continuously endure ours? Getting all worked up about being able to mass-consume under the banner of Christianity is pretty screwy. Maybe that makes me a 'godless liberal,' but at least i'm a tolerant one.

It was all me

Who says non-profit work doesn't have its perks?
We got hooked up last night, sitting in Row E of the Kings game, under the basket. Those of you who know your alphabet know just how close Row E is to the court & the Kings bench. AND, in a feat that happens too, too rarely, our beloved Kings actually won! Granted, they were playing the now 5-10 Charlotte Bobcats (a team i didn't even know existed), but a w is a w. Bibby was Captain Scoring McBucketPants, draining all of his 3 pointers except 1, which was promptly rebounded to him where he made the exact same shot with no effort. It reminded me of my early NBA days. It was amusing to watch him on the bench, where he would whip out his trusty nail clippers & go to town. Honestly, i don't know how that guy has any fingernails left. Maybe his nails grow at an alarming rate, i hear prenatal vitamins do that to you, & make your hair grow too....which explains why Bibby is bald as all getup. i don't know where i'm going with this.... Anyway, i think tattoos just magically pop out of his skin every 109 minutes; it explains the randomosity of his body art. Francisco Garcia did well, & every time he scored the announcer would say his name all fun, which made me think of when Buddy the Elf whispers 'Francisco' repeatedly in James Caan's office. Which makes a great segue to............ Christmas is coming & i like it.

Movie Reviews

RENT, starring Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, & a bunch of Broadway people
If you don't like musicals, i wouldn't suggest this movie. If Moulin Rouge & Chicago were a stretch for you, Rent is not going to change your mind. It's the musicalist musical-turned-film i've seen yet. Thus, if you LIKE musicals, you'll love it. It's dichotomous like that.
i liked (but did not love) this movie. It was well acted & sung, probably because 6/8 of the main cast have been playing these roles for 10 years. It has some really good coreography (dance scene in a moving subway? you bet!) though 'The Tango Maureen' pales dramatically in comparison to the 200 person'Roxanne' tango in Moulin Rouge & Chicago's high energy 'Cell Block Tango.' The love story between Collins & Angel is the best, with Law & Order's Jesse Martin reprising his Broadway role & bringing a sense of appreciation to Angel's funeral scene, which could've easily become just a swamp of grief. Maureen's 'protest' was hilarious & absurd in the live version i saw in San Diego, but on film i think the director wanted people to take it seriously. Not possible & a big mistake. i would've liked more of Taye Diggs (and not just because he's really really ridiculously good looking), he was one of the better actors of the cast & he didn't get to sing enough. All in all it was a movie to appreciate, if not love, for the tremendous amount of talent that was misdirected at times, but nevertheless very present. i give it 3 out of 5 bad 80's costumes.

THE JACKET, starring Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, & Kris Kristofferson
i haven't even finished watching this movie & i'm already reviewing it. What does that tell you?
Whilst watching last night, i kept thinking that it seemed familiar to me, even tho i'd never seen it before. Then i realized i HAD seen it before, only it was called The Manchurian Candidate, Gothika, & The Butterfly Effect. Adrian Brody (who somehow manages to always be handsome despite that crazy nose) plays Gulf War vet Jack Starks tangled up in Gulf War Syndrome & at the mercy of evil Dr. Kris-kris in a mental ward. Dr. Kris experiments w/him & locks him up in a morgue drawer (pause: the movie should've been called The Drawer, not The Jacket) where Jack is violently confronted with clausterphobia, crazy flashing memories and....the ability to time travel?? Oh dear.
In his Marty McFlying, he meets up with Keira Knightley in the year 2007, who should NEVER attempt an American accent AGAIN. Her interpretation of 'American' is to make her voice unattractively deep, which, in addition to her annoying habit of talking through her teeth, is just a mess. (As one review said, "Maybe in the sequel Jack can go back in time & pick a better co-star.") She's a mean, low-voiced, teeth-talking drunk, and Jack falls in love w/her because she tells him how he dies? Whatever. Summary: Brody's ok, Kris-kris is cool to watch, Keira needs to be drowned by pirates. The giant plot leaps keep me from caring about what Jack's deal is. 2 out 5 crazy noses.

Come

The Advent Season has begun! It's exciting to think that Christ's birthday is less than a month away. Here's to hoping we honor his b-day half as much as we anticipate and celebrate our own and those of our loved ones.
Collect: All-powerful God, increase our strength of will for doing good that Christ may find an eager welcome at his coming and call us to his side in the kingdom of heaven where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

A coffee maker is a robot.

The Office is tied with about 5 other shows as my Total and Complete Favorite Television Series Ever, and i recently discovered that the ever-hilarious Dwight has a blog! Sample---

Also- think about the way the throat and swallowing works. The epiglotis decides what goes where down the trachea and/or esophogus. But it gets no respect. This tiny flap of skin in your neck decides if something is food or air. The food goes to your tummy. The air goes to your lungs. Without it your food would go straight into your lungs and clog them up. You'd have soup in your lungs. Or a sandwich. Or doritos. Or Fresca. OR you would get air in your tummy and be a big gassy fart bag all the time. All that from the tiny, powerful epiglotis.
In many ways, I am like the epiglotis. Small, unappreciated, not well thought of or respected, but POWERFUL. So powerful that without me you'd have food in your lungs.
Today's topic: "What part of the body are YOU mos tlike?" (and don't say the genitals or the butt)

14::

the number of cat toys and improvised cat toys (bottle caps, rubber bands, sour Starbursts) that we just found under the oven. The screen door was too big for him to shove under.

Movie Review: Stage Beauty

STAGE BEAUTY:: starring Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Tom Wilkinson, and Rupert Everett as a straight guy for once....but barely.

i wanted to see this movie b/c once upon a time i saw the play it is based on, and the play is based on actual events from the diary of real-person Samuel Pepys, a social mover and shaker in 1600s England. (remember this play Whit? i know you do and i know why you do...... *evil grin*)
So the premise is this: It's England in the days when women were forbidden to act and all female parts....er, roles, were played by men. (unless you were Gwyneth Paltrow and your Oscar was undeserved. But i digress.) Billy Crudup plays Ned Kenyston, who is famous throughout everywhere for his performances as Ophelia, Juliet, and other lead female roles, including Othello's doomed love, Desdemona. Only this is back when acting was hardly realistic, and playing a woman meant speaking in a high voice and moving your arms weird. When Ned's Desdemona gets smothered by Othello, she simply twirls her wrist like a falling leaf to signify dying. Yeah.
Anyway, he's the shizzle and Claire Danes is his dresser (basically his personal assistant), Mariah. But wait! She's also an outlaw! of sorts- she is illegally playing Desdemona in an underground theater group and getting rave reviews. Truthfully, she is playing Ned playing Desdemona: she's actually not that good of an actress. Ned is secretly sleeping with the theater's benefactor, who is a man, and Mariah is carrying a secret torch for the flaming Ned (HAHA! i'm awesome).
By and by, they all end up at a party thrown by Rupert Everett/King Charles, who has just returned from exile and is bored to death that the theater-going experience is just as lame as when he left it. Charles has a mistress who wants to act, and since Charles is pissed at the appropriate politicos that outlaw females on the stage, he decrees that now women are allowed to act. Ned's pissed- he insists there's no art in women playing women and he refuses to play men for the same reason. Eventually, he insults Charles's mistress, so Charles gets mad and makes another law that only men can play men and only women can play women. This means that Ned's out of a job and Mariah becomes the It Girl. (being The Pioneer makes up for her lack of talent)
She becomes aware of her suckiness and seeks out Ned in his slummy conditions and eventually he comes to help the theater fix their Othello problems. They realize that both of their portrayals of poor Desdemona have been all wrong, so Ned usurps the always-great Tom Wilkinson as Othello for the final scene and plays it realistically- smothering Mariah's Desdemona past the point of stage violence and just short of the the point of actually killing her. Mariah/Desdemona appropriately fights back- no twirling wrist deaths here! In Othello's love and greif for Desdemona, Ned finally finds the bridge between playing a woman and playing a man, and with the scene they usher in a new era of acting. Plus they hook up.

The play was superior, but the movie was better than i thought it would be... and not just because Billy Crudup, when not in Renaissance Drag, is very easy on the eyes. It's an interesting look at gender and sexuality, on who we think we are and who others have told us we are. The acting was good-- the more i see of Claire Danes the more i realize that her acting consists mainly of looking at people and physically responding to what they're saying, and not so much delivering lines herself. This is not to say she's bad, i think she's pretty good, but she's found her money shot and she sticks a little too closely to it. Billy Crudup is very good, especially when trying unsuccessfully to deliver a man's soliloquy; it's a troubling scene to watch. Tom Wilkinson plays a typical Tom Wilkinson role, but unlike Ms. Danes, he seems to make more out of a character than what is written. Rupert Everett does alot with the role he's given, and is hardly recognizable without that great 'i'm Rupert Everett' voice and delivery. i've decided to like him more. HAHA! i just realized that after watching this movie on Saturday, we watched Tootsie on Sunday! Proof that the universe works in circles! Anyway, if anything, this film is a bit of a history lesson and it serves as a reminder of the awesomeness that is Mr. Shakespeare's Othello.
Stage Beauty gets 3.8 out of 5 Smother Pillows. Its playbill predecessor, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, gets 5 out of 5 Unexpected Full Frontals. (ask Whit)

Glory Indeed

From E!Online-- "Talk about your all-star comedy teams. Seriously funny comedians Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler kick up their heels in Blades of Glory. The story centers on two male figure skaters (Ferrell and Heder) who are banned from the sport only to return as pair competitors to face their bitter rivals (Arnett and Poehler). Ben Stiller produces the flick."

TOP 5 SIMPSONS EPISODES

Whenever i think i'm running out of Top 5 topics, i think of the Simpsons, then i realize that i'm being a weenie in light of their longevity. Given that there's more than 330 episodes out there, i'm sure there will be future Simpsons lists, Top 5 Ralph Quotes, Top 5 Guest Stars, Top 5 Treehouses of Horror, etc. Here's my list of best all-around episodes, feel free to share your favorites.

"Das Bus" (the 'Lord of the Flies' episode) which is initiated by Bart and Nelson 'racing' an apple and orange down the aisle of the school bus. Ralph tosses a non-rolling banana down to join the race: "Go banana!!" Fast forward to Ralph's "I eated the purple berries!.....It tastes like burning" and you've got 2 of many reasons this episode rocks. Highlights include great contributions from Millhouse and Nelson, with James Earl Jones as the narrator, Homer's internet company, CompuGobalHyperMegaNet, plus it encourages people to read classic literature.

"El Viaje de Nuestro Jomer"--Homer does his version of the pee-dance: "Marge! We're gonna miss the Chili Cookoff! Less artsy more fartsy!" They go, he drinks too much and eats some of Wiggum's crazy chili, only to end up hallucinating in the desert with a talking coyote (the late Johnny Cash). Lost, he wanders to the lighthouse to find his soul mate, where Marge tracks him down after remembering his affection for blinking lights and proving their true soulmatehood. Aw!

"How I Spent My Strummer Vacation"--The family sends Homer to Rock n Roll Camp!! Fun guest stars abound: Tom Petty, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, Mick Jagger, etc. Homer and the rest of Springfield's men learn about crotch stuffing, songwriting, and the like. At the final concert for the town, Homer can't face the shame of just being a roadie, so he steals the show with his improv'd song "Testin' My Love." Highlight: Homer swinging the guitar around by the cord yelling "Baby baby baby baby!"

"I Love Lisa"--(i'm a big Lisa fan, so i had to give her shout out. ) Lisa notices that Ralph didn't get any Valentines, so she gives him one reading "I choo-choo-choose you!" (and it has a picture of a train!) Ralph misunderstands the gesture and falls madly in love with her. He announces it publicly on Krusty's Show and Lisa erupts, confessing that she doesn't love Ralph at all. Ever-helpful Bart later plays the video to her in slo-mo: "You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half!" Feeling bad, Lisa gives Ralph another Valentine reading "Let's BEE friends!" (and it has a picture of a bee!) Highlights include Homer's tricking Ralph into putting a new coat of tar on the roof.

"Missionary: Impossible"--Homer pledges $10,000 to save his favorite British sitcom, "Do Shut Up." Betty White tracks him down for the $, w/the Teletubbies and Mr. Rogers as backup. Homer flees to the church where Rev. Lovejoy ships him off as a missionary to the South Pacific. Homer opens Lucky Savage casino, which leads to alcoholism and violence, so to atone he agrees to finish building a chapel. Upon completion, he and the girl he's named Lisa Junior ring the chapel bell too loud and start an earthquake and subsequent lava flood. Great jokes about the church and casinos, the fierce Betty White, and of course, "Save us Jebus!"

Blessed Are The Rich?

In case you needed a good reason to go to church: an economist finds a statistical correlation between income and religious service attendance.

Cosmo Brown

This past week Josh and i finally saw the movie Singin' In The Rain. (In other news, Singin' In The Rain has been added to my Christmas list. Take note.) As tempting as it is to say "They just don't make movies like they used to," it actually encouraged me to try and see the simplicity of talent in what i now watch. If you haven't seen this classic, rent it, Netflix it, catch it on A&E, whatever you need to do. A return to form is always a good thing. Also, in honor of this film i've changed Cosmo's name to Cosmo Brown-Kramer.

Proof that God is All Powerful

This weekend was Apprentice Weekend with the youth group at our church. When we signed up to help, we were unaware that this was an all-youth event, not just the senior high students we know and love. So John needs to be tied naked to the top of an ant hill and covered in molten-hot honey. i ended up with a group of 3 senior and 2 junior high girls. One junior high student seriously had me standing on the railing of our balcony whispering "Goodbye cruel world." So this is how i know that God is all powerful: there are people in this world who absolutely love junior high students and make a career out of spending hours and hours and hours with them. i can't stand them.

Anyway, the point of the activity was to take a combined $50 ($10 each) and multiply it somehow. We worked on a bare budget, cleaning windows for the elderly and using our own paper towels and Windex. We scored a surprising amount of cash this way, by charging $2/per window, inside and out, and $4/per sliding door. We also featured Goldfish Racing, which ended up getting us the Most Creative prize and a limo ride for our team. Goldfish Racing involves buying two vinyl rain gutters, capping the ends, filling them with water, and 'pushing' the fish along by blowing through a straw behind it. First fish to the opposite end of the gutter wins! We were able to return the gutters at the end of the day and thus spend only 50 cents on the fish! It only got us $8, but that's ok. And none of the fish died so i gave them to one of Jim Manker's kids when Jim wasn't looking. :P In the end, we made $225 dollars and each girl got $45 to put toward Winter Camp, which costs about $150, so not bad at all. Plus we got kicked out of WalMart, which didn't bother me in the least because you KNOW it wasn't my idea to set up there.

Top 5 Rejected Band Names Before Coming Up With 'Death Cab For Cutie'

i don't know why Death Cab For Cutie is what it is, but here are my picks for the band names that almost were:

White Van for Sticky
Metermaid Boogaloo
Soybean Funk and the OhNeeDers
Firetruck Cheezit
Good Golly Ma

Anything with 'Boogaloo' in the name gets heavy rotation on my tape player, that's fo shizzle.

people suck

Prop 73 failed by the narrowest margin of all the Propositions: 52.6 to 47.4 percent.
To say i'm disappointed would be an understatement. i feel discouraged and angry and basically like humans in general are Crap. Since Planned Parenthood put so much into protecting their financial interests, creeps can go on having sex with 13-year-olds because nobody is ever going to know, and the clinics are going to keep tossing the evidence out as soon as the check clears.
Two-thirds of pregnant, CA, school-age children were victims of sexual predators over 22 years old. Citing their desire to protect privacy, abortionists withhold information about sexual abuse of pregnant children from parents and authorities. Planned Parenthood sold the lie that parental involvement would harm girls, but CA courts had already ruled that there is no evidence of any harm to minors from laws in the 30 other states requiring parental notification... the same states that show decreases in minor abortions and pregnancies when involvement laws are in place.
It just sucks. People suck.

DO IT

Today is Election Day, for those of you living unaware in The Bubble. You can find the nearest polling place HERE and please, if anything, vote Yes on 73.

Movie Review: Chicken Little

Starring Zach Braff as Chicken Little, who is the embarrassment of Oakey Oaks after his claim of falling sky. Tons of quality funny folk featured, including Joan Cusack, Don Knotts, and Steve Zahn as Runt, who was actually quite large. (i'm not used to Steve Zahn being the biggest guy on the screen so it was a kinda strange to wrap my head around it) i love Joan Cusack and was really looking forward to her part, but she wasn't given much to work with at all, so that was a little disappointing. The gang has the standard Silent Sidekick, in this case it's Fish Out Of Water, who is actually pretty funny. He does The Robot as a dodgeball technique :] Zach Braff does a great job, as does Batman Himself: Adam West.

It was a fun movie, but not as fun as Pixar counterparts usually are. The moral of the story for the kids is 'You can easily be misunderstood and become the embarrassment of your entire town and most painfully, your own father, and unless aliens violently invade the planet there's nothing you can do about it.' Maybe the moral is 'Don't be mean to misunderstood kids', but i'm guessing more children walked out of the theater worried about being shunned than eager to hang out with any Ugly Ducklings.

Overall, it was a good movie to see in the theaters, but only for the matinee price. 3 out of 5 Fred Willard Aliens.

TOP 10 OVER & UNDER RATED ACTORS

(inspired by Winter, who is underrated)
Okay- skipping over the obviously overrated (Cameron, Tom, you listening?), here are my picks for the people that just aren't worth their bajillion dollar paychecks, along with the people who need either an Oscar, more roles, or both.

SO OVER.......................... WAY UNDER
Russel Crowe..................... Kevin Bacon
Ewan MacGregor ................Sam Rockwell
Denzel Washington............. Cillian Murphy
Tobey Maguire.................... John Leguizamo
Jeremy Piven...................... Alec Baldwin
Angelina Jolie..................... Marcia Gay Harden
Kate Hudson....................... Alison Lohman
Renee Zellweger.................. Maggie Gyllenhaal
Drew Barrymore................... Thandie Newton
Teri Hatcher......................... Catherine Keener

Daily Scream?

i discovered this through Charlie (who needs a cloak...). Put your name into Google followed by the word needs. It has to be in double quotes, ie "Kallie needs" Here's what i need, let me know what you need!
-Kallie needs to go to a veterinary office for X rays or an ultrasound
-Kallie just needs some time to show off her true qualities (and there are many) parentheses NOT mine!
-Kallie needs to be on Babe Blvd
-Kallie needs all of her family members for the rest of her life
-Kallie needs sleep now
-Kallie needs surgery to save her life
-Kallie needs moving asap
-Kallie needs some professional help – from a Dog trainer
-Kallie needs lots of affection and attention
-Kallie needs her daily scream

The Great Pumpkin Show Off

Frankenpumpkin by Josh, Drooling Gourd by Travis, October Zen by Kallie

The gallery of entries at my parents' party.

Trick or Treat Food Court

Whilst millions of people dressed up in awkward contraptions of spook and millions more ignored said celebrants and pretended to not hear the doorbell or the sound of breaking eggshells, i became the most productive person in the country. i thought to myself, 'Kalpal, you gorgeous example of all things nifty, there probably won't be very many people at the mall tonight if you want to get some early Christmas shopping done.' And there weren't and i DID. i actually wiped out an entire family worth of gifts and nabbed some birthday presents in the process.

The mall was deserted of shoppers, but, disturbingly, was populated by too many parents taking their kids trick-or-treating from store to store. Now i don't know about you, but isn't the fun of trick-or-treating going from spooky stranger's house, to spooky stranger's house and forcing them for one night out of the year to acknowledge that you exist, you're adorable, and you deserve all the sugar they have? Why go to a well lit, hardly decorated mall and get a mouse pad from the Discovery Channel store after they've run out of candy? (true story. Saddest thing in the world is watching a 6 yr old boy dressed as Spidey get a lame mouse pad when he wanted a fistful of Gobstoppers. You can bet he won't allow his parents to take him Mall-or-Treating next year) Maybe this indoor Halloween stuff has been going on for years and i haven't noticed, but i think it's DUMB. It wasn't even a cold night outside! AND i was in Roseville, so it's not like these 200 families dragging their costumed kids through the Eddie Bauer store on their way to Forever 21 couldn't find a decent neighborhood to tromp through. i'm pretty sure the w.a.s.p.s that make up the Roseville and Rocklin city councils have all ensured that all 967 subdivisions, condo and apartment complexes are identically attractive.

Is the pervasion of capitalism to blame that now we spend holidays in shopping malls? Perhaps, but who am i to say? i was shopping.