Home of the Soul Cookie

Since Noelle wondered aloud what sort of results I’d get, here they are.

(more…)

At the suggestion of a coworker, I downloaded and installed Dancer LE, a sample from Microsoft’s Plus! add-on for Windows  (which you need to be running to use the program).

Says the site:

Experience music in a whole new way with lifelike, 3-D, animated dancers that groove on your desktop with dozens of entertaining and hilarious dance moves.

There are four sample dancers to download; my favorite so far is “Kris, the Holiday Elf.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Dentarthurdent:

Cast Set For Hitchhiker

Martin Freeman (The Office), Zooey Deschanel and Mos Def top the cast of Spyglass Entertainment/Walt Disney Pictures’ feature version of Douglas Adams’ beloved SF satire The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Variety reported. Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (aka Hammer & Tongs) will direct the movie, which starts shooting April 19 in London, the trade paper reported.

Adams, who adapted his own book prior to his death in 2001, will have a posthumous producing credit, the trade paper reported.
The story centers on Arthur Dent (Freeman), who is whisked off the planet by Ford Prefect (Def), an undercover alien researching The Hitchhiker’s Guide just before Earth is destroyed to create a new hyperspace freeway. Deschanel will play Trillian, girlfriend of Zaphod Beeblebrox, a two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and current president of the galaxy. That role has still to be cast, the trade paper reported.

Don’t know who those folks are? S’okay - I had to look ‘em up too:

Martin Freeman

Mos Def

Zooey Deschanel (and a bonus pics site link)

“…I would buy you a house…” http://www.fridayfive.org/

You have just won one million dollars:

Yay, me!

1. Who do you call first?
Noelle and I have a standing agreement that when one (or both) of us wins the lottery, the other one is first on the speed dial. Sweeeeeet.

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?
Honestly? A new computer.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?
I don’t know - but see the next question.

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?
Absolutely, yes! I would want to share my gain with all my loved ones.

Just think: $25k each for a bunch of people would still leave me quite a bit of money while quite possibly/hopefully making a huge positive impact on each of their lives.

So here’s hoping I get to share a windfall with Noelle, Amy, Jason, Kris, Amber, and everyone else!

5. Do you invest any? If so, how?
Most definitely. I would likely invest in high-yield mutual funds. Sure, they’re higher risk, but I’m young enough that I can just let the moolah sit and (hopefully) increase dramatically over the long haul.

But I’d also invest in getting some sound financial advice from someone who knows what in the hell they’re doing.

Academy Award nominations were announced early this morning. I’m happy to report that Lord of the Rings: Return of the King garnered a total of 11 nominations – the most of any film this year – with nods for:

• Best Picture
• Best Director (Peter Jackson)
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson)
• Art Direction
• Sound Mixing
• Original Score (Howard Shore)
  • up against Danny Elfman’s score for Big Fish
• Original Song (”Into the West” - Fran Walsh, Howard Shore and Annie Lennox)
• Costume
• Film Editing
• Makeup
• Visual Effects

But where are the actors’ nods? Where’s Andy Serkis? And where the hell is Sean Astin’s nomination? Yo, Academy guys: Did you not see the scenes with Samwise?

At least the traditionally-conservative Academy recognized Johnny Depp’s phenomenal performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: he’s up for Best Actor. It’s still all too likely that the herd of voters will automatically give more weight to the performances of his competition (Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Bill Murray, and Sean Penn) when it comes time to hand out the statuette next month, but I can hope.

Apparently Whale Rider’s Keisha Castle-Hughes is the youngest Best Actress nominee ever… at age thirteen.

No nominations for Nicole, though.

E! has a feature story and the complete list of nominees on their site.

ca·thar·sis (kuh-THAR-sihs)

Light floods in as the lid is removed. A face, peering. Recognition registers.

So I was going through some of the “I’ve moved this how many times?” boxes a few nights ago in preparation for my move to SF this summer when I stumbled upon a box that had the love notes my ex had written to me. All along and even after the divorce I’d saved them. All of them. And there in the bottom of that cardboard cube had they slumbered, unread and unremembered, for the five years since the Long Winter.

Sitting cross-legged. Handwritten notes whisper from orbit in a voice long unheard.

Though I’d looked through many of the physical artifacts from our relationship from time to time over those many months – indeed, I’ve gotten rid of most of them – this was the first time that I had read through all those words, all those declarations of love and hope and fear from a girl that would later deny them to a boy that no longer exists.

Pages float down to a bed of ash. The match springs to life.

These were the last remnants of our time together, unnecessary burdens that I had no need of. So I took them out back, opened the barbecue grill, dropped them in, and burned them. Not out of anger, nor sadness, nor lamentation, nor pain. Just… release.

Memories and dreams, bound to a past unjoined to a present continuity, are liberated by the cleansing flame.

I stood there and watched the paper curl and burn as a slight breeze tempted bits of ash into the night sky and I allowed myself one final reflective smile about the past.

Then I turned, came inside, and shut off the porchlight.

Barnes and Barnes denies any responsibility for these word associations. http://subliminal.lunanina.com/

1. Political:: party
2. Concentration:: focused
3. Fish:: heads
4. Lunacy:: madness
5. Red:: hair
6. Imply:: suggest
7. Recognize:: my love
8. Sexist:: narrow-minded
9. Commercial:: break
10. Stricken:: dumb

For my first journey across the border into Mexico¹, I went to my first strip clubs on Sunday night with my friends Steve and “Z,” Z’s wife, and a buddy of Z’s named Gabe, who was shipping off to boot camp on Tuesday.

The first club was a dark, smoky place called the Miau Miau². It was a very surreal experience, I must say. The crowd was a mix of horny, lonely Mexican men, the youngest of whom looked to be in their thirties or forties, and crazed high school seniors from the US, clearly enjoying the combination of bare breasts and laws that make drinking legal at eighteen.

Signs littered the walls, hawking their wares - cervezas for thirty pesos (about three dollars), a drink with one of the dancers at your table for seventy. There was a nonstop commentary from the emcee, the rapid-fire Spanish chatter punctuated by the occasional English idiom slurred by someone who doesn’t really speak the language: “…es Ciera. ¡Mira! OhmiyeGAWD!”

I’d heard that strip clubs are strictly no-touching affairs. Here’s an interesting discovery I made: That, apparently, is only true in American strip clubs; Mexican strip clubs are, shall we say, full contact. I was amazed at the fondling that happened one dollar bill at a time.

Hard currency, indeed.

I did not partake, myself, despite the urging of others (well, okay, Z). Gabe, however, stuffed enough bills for the lot of us. The more he drank (and he chugged one Dos Equis after another), the bolder and more tactile he became. By the time we left the Miau Miau and moved to another club called Madonas (conveniently, it was right next door), he was quite happy to be the target of several dancers’ bumping and grinding right there at our table (again with the convenience!).

Most of the girls at the two places looked bored, though there were a few that put on a good show. One in particular was quite impressive, doing stunning pole work (on the stage - stop that snickering :wink:) in a fabulously goth-y³ outfit, black and flowing and slinky, with these kickass boots that were all buckles and black leather. It was very nice-a.

Several hours later, we split and went to a taqueria (a taco stand - Best. Tacos. Ever.) before heading back to the US. Even that became a minor adventure in and of itself, thanks to the full-blown drunkness of Gabe, next to me in the back seat of Z’s truck:

From the time we’d left the second club, Gabe had been feeling extremely buddy-buddy, and would punctuate his points by nudging me with his knee. In his inebriation, though, what he meant to be along the lines of “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” came out more as “POW! SLAM!” This was all fine and good while we were driving through Mexicali; it wasn’t so good when he decided that I was “freaking out” about the US Customs officials stationed at the border⁴ and urged me to “stay calm, duuuude, stay calm.” He was so reassuring that my leg was bruised for several days.

All in all, it was quite a fun time, though it was the going with friends that made the evening entertaining; I don’t foresee solo trips to strip clubs in my future. Another group outing, however, would be an altogether different story…

1. Seriously! I’ve lived here for 4¹/₂ years; I lived in Orange County for somewhere in the ballpark of a decade; and I’d never been to Mexicali nor Tijuana.
2. “Miau” is the Spanish onomatopoetic equivalent of English’s “meow.”
3. I freely admit that I’m a sucker for the goth aesthetic. Big time.
4. I wasn’t.

This just in from our affiliates: http://www.fridayfive.org/

At this moment, what is your favorite…

1. …song?
“Bus Stop” by the Hollies

2. …food?
“Flaming Hot” Cheetos

3. …tv show?
Justice League
(R.I.P Firefly)

4. …scent?
leather

5. …quote?
“The past tempts us,
   the present confuses us,
      and the future frightens us.

lost in that vast, terrible in-between.”

          -Centauri Emperor Turhan,
          Babylon 5, “Coming of Shadows”
          (J. Michael Straczynski)