Match Point

I saw this movie last week some time and I am still really disturbed by it. Scarlett Johansson/ Woody Allen film. I was uncomfortable the whole way through the movie. So much so, in fact, I was doing things in other rooms just to get away. I couldn't bring myself to just turn the damn thing off. I thought the first part of the movie with the main character in love with his brother-in-law's fiance was excruciating, then I watched then end for some reason and it was HORRIBLE! I should have just turned it off.

On a lighter note, I love Matthew Goode. He is just so damn cute!

Question about Planet Earth

I have a little problem with the show. The fact that everything is "so rare" or "rarely caught on camera". When really I have seen almost all of it on other shows. One in particular really bothers me. The snow leopards. They said it was the first time a snow leopard had ever been filmed while hunting. Funny, I watched a Nature about snow leopards in the Himalayas over a year ago with footage of them hunting. What's the deal? How can they say that?

By the way

Planet Earth did not disappoint!

I have a bone to pick with you, Yogurt!

Why does yogurt need high fructose corn syrup? This really pisses me off! If I wanted to ingest sweet, chemical sludge I would drink a soda. I would not, however, eat some yogurt. I realize unsweetened yogurt is horrible. But what the fuck is wrong with sugar. I know, I know there is yogurt out there with sugar. Do you know how much it costs? It costs upwards of 75 cents for a measly, little, single serving container! Some are over a dollar! The high fructose corn syrup yogurt is 5 for $2. It goes up 35 cents a container, for what? The cheap yogurt has sugar in it too!

Organic, don't you love that word. Immediately the price doubles when "Organic" is on any food. What a fucking scam. How about an affordable yogurt without chemicals? Is this really so hard. I have been thinking about this for a couple days now. It is driving me mad!

Radio Stations

Is anybody else upset about the where radio stations are going? Maybe this is a Texas thing but I doubt it.

A couple years ago Bob FM bought out the only Austin oldies station. Since I really like the oldies and pretty much only listened to that station I was pretty pissed off about it. Also, the fact that it sounds like every other fucking radio station really pissed me off. Why couldn't they buy one of those bullshit stations? But that is neither here nor there. My real problem with the radio station is the stupid radio plugs between songs. They talk about Bob. They say things about what Austin used to be like and he has been in Austin for so many years, blah, blah, blah. Here is good one, "Bob remember's when strolling down South Congress wasn't a very good idea." (That is there typo not mine.) There are more, every one more irrigating than the next. When I first heard them I thought it was bullshit. Then me and Kyle were in San Antonio? or maybe Houston or even Corpus. I don't remember. Where ever we were we happened upon a Bob station. Guess what? It was the same stupid bullshit about Bob being a native to where we were. It really pissed me off? Does anyone really buy that there is a Bob? What Emmis Communications has one guy named Bob and he somehow runs all the different Bob radio stations and is somehow native to every city? Or maybe there is a Bob army? I have never wished colon cancer on anybody before, but if I did it would be the jackass that thought that Bob FM was a good idea.

So, Kyle, calls me yesterday to tell me they took away one of his radio stations that he listens to. It is from College Station so it can be a little iffy on the reception. Anyways to new radio station is called Jack. Can you believe it? It is just like Bob only Jack. CBS radio owns it. I guess they know a mediocre thing when they see it. Nobody ever jumps on the really awesome bandwagon. But it never fails, the bandwagons that I wish were at the bottom of a river are piling on the travelers. Apparently, Jack went to A&M.

Here are the places I want to go:

The Andes Mountains
Were glaciers meet rain forest.
WILD.
Flamingos fly to this big salty lake in the Atacama Desert. They get frozen in the water every night and thaw every morning. Watch them dance.
Penguins live in the rain forest and swim in the icy water.
The largest hummingbird in the world. It dies every night with the cold and is revived with the sun every morning.
Volcanoes.
Huge deserts, giant salt flats.
Strange animals.
Ancient, unexplainable, art work in the desert.

Lake Tanganyika
Now, I don't really want to go to Africa. But I would love to see this lake.
The lake was created by a rift. The lake is so old that the life in the lake developed similar to marine life, but it has never had contact with the ocean. There are jellyfish, crabs, shrimp and puffer fish in the LAKE!
It is the second largest lake in the world. See it from space.
There are 250 species of cichlid fish and 150 non cichlid fish species. They say it is as full as a well stocked aquarium. All the cichlids are adapted in different ways and look incredibly different.

And of course Croatia.

The closest place I want to go to Alaska is the Galapagos. They aren't anywhere near each other. But they are closer than all the other places I want to go.

While we are on the subject of all things nature-y. I would like to bring every one's attention to the new 11 part mini series Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. It starts this Sunday. The trailer is just spectacular!

Alaskan Cruise?

So Kyle's little sister is getting married this summer. First she was thinking of getting married in Hawaii. Then she said St. Thomas. Okay, I would love a free vacation to the Caribbean, not that I would turn down a free vacation ever. The reason for St. Thomas was that her fiance's dad has a condo down there and they were trying to rent rooms in the condo for everyone. It was something like $300 a night. Turns out there weren't enough room for everyone. Bummer. So now we have to go on an Alaskan Cruise. The Caribbean or Alaska? There are tons of places I want to go. None of which are Alaska or anywhere near Alaska for that matter. Kyle is incredibly disappointed. Is it going to be cold in Alaska even if it is in July? How does that work? Would we need coats on a summer cruise? I'm not a cold weather kinda gal. This doesn't sound particularly fun. On the bright side, don't you think I would get to see a lot of wildlife? Apparently, whales feed in the waters off Alaska in the summer months.

On the accident news front

My insurance is only going to pay for half of her damages. Since I was backing up I had "the greater duty to yield". Which really doesn't make any sense to me at all. Shouldn't the person who has "control of the aisle" be the one with the "greater duty" because, you know, they can see what is going on better? The fact that she had "control" of anything is pretty laughable. I mean, the fact that she didn't pull her car over she just stopped and cars could still drive around her without any problem in a one way aisle tells me she didn't have control over it.

But whatever.

It is better than paying everything. It is gone from my mind. Everything is okay. Unless she fights it and you know that will be pretty bad.

Sometimes I think it would do a lot of good to scream at the top of my lungs. But I rarely find and appropraite time or place for this kind of thing.

Blueberries!

Remember when I said I had a blueberry craving that I couldn't shake? Well, I still haven't had any blueberries. This is how it manifested itself.

I want to get rid of my car

I didn't go to work, yesterday. I got into a car accident ten minutes before work. I didn't feel like it after that. It really upset me. It was just a fender bender, but I was still pretty pissed off when it happened. I sat in the car for a full minute telling myself to not be angry and don't be mean. The first thing the old bat says when she gets out of her car is, "You were pulling out so fast!" it was in this really fake, appalled way. I lost it and yelled, "Oh! Come on, Lady!" Oh, yes I yelled at an old, crippled lady. Because that was absolutely not true. She was a little taken aback by me I think. Never in my life have I wanted to hurt and old person as much as I did then. It really crossed my mind to push her down.

At this point in the story Kyle would interrupt and say something like, "Boy, somebody needs to go to anger management!" To which I reply with, "No, see, I just think about those things. I am managing my anger pretty good. When I start doing those things instead of just thinking about it, then I will need anger management."

She was driving too fast and too close to the cars when I pulled out. There happen to be a big giant truck next to me. We couldn't see one another. She scraped her car on my bumper. If she would have stopped in a timely manner she would have done much less damage to her car. Instead her car is pretty dinged up. Mine looks like this.As Corley said, "Your car is so hearty."

It really bothered me. I get a really bad vibe from this lady. I think she will try to rip off my insurance company. I couldn't sleep last night. I am tired of worring about things. I just wish I never had to drive anywhere.

I am becoming increasingly bored with myself. It manifested itself with new colors.

I'm done ripping myself off

Can we talk about The Raconteurs?

The cd is so good. I am pretty much in love with Jack White. I mean I don't think I would sleep with him or anything like that. It is more of, "I love your musical genius please shine more of it down on me, and faster. " Okay, I may sleep with him in some alternate universe only if he didn't have that horrible mustache, Loretta Lynn was involved, and a jar of Mayonnaise.

Rome

I just saw last Sunday's Rome. It was so intense. I have come to the conclusion that Pullo is the love of my life. He is a bad mother fucker.

Gotta love that Austin nightlife

Austin is so incredibly small, and it is shrinking everyday, dear friend. I only tell you this out of compassion and friendship. I am pretty sure in the not to distant future Austin will implode. Between me and Kyle we can't spit without hitting someone we know. The sad part is that I recognize people from seeing them around so much, but I have no idea what there name is.

Saturday at Emo's Clutch concert:

Before we even got into Emo's I pulled the truck around and Kyle was getting out to ask if Doug (the friend that came with us) needed his credit card that he bought the tickets with. It wasn't open yet, but I circled the block. There was this guy in front of us in his fancy car and he was trying and I say "trying" very loosely here to parallel park. It must have taken him 10 minutes. So when I come around Kyle is talking to this guy. I am immediately suspicious cause Kyle is smiling. He gets in the car and tells me that was Matt. Matt is a childhood friend. We haven't seen him in, I would say, 6+ years. He was playing at Emo's lounge that night.

So then we get in and we are going to meet one of Kyle's other friends. Kyle worked with this guy that is how he knows him. He somehow met some guys Kyle went to school with. He brought them with him. These are the same guys we always run into at The Sidebar. It is always nice to see people that you have met a handful of times and remember one of those times you were throwing up.

We aren't the kind of people who go to a concert and get up in the front and thrash around and get hot and sweaty. We are the kind of people who sit in the back on the bleachers 'cause we are just to damn lazy. Looking at us you might think we were at home listening to a cd. BUT, on these back bleachers you are free to see everybody coming and going.

We saw two different dj's from the local radio station. At one point Kyle says, "Hey there is your friend from City Wide Garage Sale." The kid works at one of the booths. It is sort of hard to not remember him. He has long hair, longer than mine. It is usually some unnatural color. The past few times I have seen him it is orange, but I have seen it blue and I think green. Anyways, he has a really bad crossed eye and he sells toys or something.

I saw this guy that I think I have only seen once at Sidebar. I remember this guy because he is incredibly gorgeous. It is hard not to remember him. He has long hair, longer than mine. It is dreaded and I think, if memory serves, he drives a motorcycle, or maybe he just carries around a helmet 'cause he thinks it looks cool.

We saw one of Kyle's teachers from UT. I think that is it

Monday at Stubb's Toadies concert:

We haven't been there for 30 minutes and Kyle sees someone he went to school with. I think he is so good at this because he gets a bird's eye view since he is 6'5". He can see everything up there, lucky bastard. So we talk to these guys for a little while. I decide that I am going to stand in line for a shirt. For some reason the line for the merchandise was around the block. Not really around the block but I spent a good hour in line. It just wasn't moving. So I am standing there thinking if I wanted to stand in line I wouldn't have paid 25 fucking dollars for this concert I can stand in line for free, when I see this guy. It turns out it was James. A friends old neighbor. His wife is responsible for turning my onto The Time Traveler's Wife. So we talked for a second and when I turned around Kyle was talking to someone he knew and lost our spot in line. Asshole!

So I leave James and Kyle tells me that the person he is talking to is, you guessed it, a childhood friend. In fact he is Matt's roommate. You know the guy we haven't seen in 6 years that we saw two nights before. We saw his roommate. What are the fucking odds?

Our little town is making quite a name for itself

You can get festival dailies from SXSW on IFC.com just like Sundance. Isn't that exciting? My problem is that it doesn't say anywhere that it is in Austin. We are going to have to rename the town SXSW. See, the Sundance Film Festival is in Sundance, Utah. So everyone knows where that one is. In the clip they do a close up of something that says Austin, but I demand something like, "blah, blah, blah, from SXSW in AUSTIN, TX" I mean we have to pay all spring break with traffic and horrendous drivers. I demand credit! Austin drivers are bad, okay I admit it, but give someone a car who doesn't know Austin and our POOR city planning. Holy Shit! You might as well give a five year old a gun. Just as safe.

You are never prepared. All of a sudden you are driving down the highway thinking, "Jeez! What is with all the traffic? There sure are a lot of out of state plates."........

"Wait, what is today?" ...here there is a long pause.... but no one is in the car to answer....

"Oh, right. South by southwest AND spring break. Right. That sucks."

My silent vows

Well, a while back I made a truely silent vow to brush my hair everyday and put some make-up on and look put together everyday. It isn't working so well, and by "so well" I mean not at all. It didn't last anytime. I made the vow while I was putting make-up on so that was as long as it lasted.

This time I am vowing to not spend my money on anything that is not related to crafting or books or crafting books. There was something else but I can't remember. That can't be a good sign. Second vow whenever depressed be sure to read from the Tao Te Ching. It always makes me feel good.

"Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao.
It is the beginning of folly."

My latest obsessions

I am obsessed with this canvas board I made. I would like a whole room that looks just like this. With a big, huge chair rail or molding or whatever you call it and huge molding on the ceiling. I intended to put something else on it, but I can't decide. My latest obsessions are birds (mostly just the shapes of birds), trees, and cephalopods of any kind (cuttlefish, squid, octopus, nautilus) and marine life in general or even fictional marine life mermaids and whatnot. I made these as sort of dry runs for this altered book I was making. I haven't painted the book at all. Now I am not sure what to do. I was convinced of the green and red until I made the green one.

Are KDF filter for our shower is pretty much spent. I could go down to the local, public pool for a rinse off and feel cleaner than when I leave my shower. Do you think chlorine causes cancer? Everything else does. I think maybe I might die of chlorine poisoning. Do you think that is possible? Sometimes when I rinse something in the kitchen sink I can smell the water really distinctly. I couldn't figure out for the longest time what it reminded me of. Clorox bleach. Yep, water straight from the tap. My skin is so, so, so, so, so dry. It hurts, it itches. I am miserable.

Is it possible to be only half hippie?

Because I think I am pretty much a hippie, but I am embarrassed by it. Let me explain. If it was really up to me I would only bathe, like, every third day. If I don't leave the house you better believe I don't bathe. In the long run I am saving water. Though, I think it is sort of unfair to let every one know that I'm not bathing so I shower when around people. I don't shave my legs. Well, okay, I shave like every other month. I might as well not shave at all. Though, I would never want anybody to see my legs unshaven. I get so tired of wearing a bra. Call me old fashioned, but I think it is inappropriate to go braless at work.

I have an incredible blueberry craving that I just can't shake.

No Glove, No Love!

This is a pretty good motto for all situations, but in particular when you are using a carving tool like this.


Without a glove, you will put it through your finger and it hurts. Bad. I have this habit of yelling fuck whenever I hurt myself. When I slipped and it hurt I said, "Fuck!" When I saw that there was a huge gash in my finger with blood coming out of it I yelled, "Fuck!" and then I just gave another "Fuck!" just for the fun of it. Of course, all the foul language is alarming. Kyle comes around the corner looking concerned.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just cut the shit out of my finger. I'm fine. But it is deep!"

Somehow I have two cuts on my finger. Obviously that is from both sides of the V shaped cutting tool. The weird part is it didn't scoop out the skin. It is a miracle. Come pray at my finger.

The story of my life

I was tipsy last night and thought of this story. It pretty much sums up my entire childhood. My grandfather was a bail bondsmen one of his best friends was a lawyer. The lawyer later became my mother's boyfriend for about 11 years or so. He was a good friend of the whole family and this was our first meeting. My grandfather died 11 years ago. The anniversary was a month ago. I had been thinking about other stories for days and days. I decided to post this one in hopes of purging it from the steel trap it is on the verge of getting stuck in.

The story begins:

A bail bondsmen and a lawyer walk into a bar. The bar is Ego's in Austin at Riverside and Congress, I believe, circa 1990. They take seats at different tables. In walks the bail bondsmen's daughter with her daughter. Everyone sits at his table and is laughing and talking. The bail bondsmen asks his granddaughter to come over to him, because he has something to say to her. He was sort of well know in the bar for a number of things, but mainly his sense of humor. So there were a few sideways glances when he whispered something into the ear of his 7 year old granddaughter. (Now picture this part in slow motion) The little girl hears what he has to say and nods knowingly. Maybe she gives him a wink. (That didn't really happen I just thought it would be cool.) Still in slow motion, she walks up to the lawyer. The bar falls silent. The little girl tells the lawyer that she can count to three. Obviously she can count to three. She can read at this point. The lawyer is totally uninterested in anything she has to say. So she asks you want to hear? The lawyer obliges her though he noticeably doesn't want to. The little girl does just as she was told and stomps her foot three times like someone has taught a horse to count. Laughter. Lots of laughter after that. I don't think I get it even still, but boy they thought it was the funniest thing on the face of the Earth. It continued to be a joke, while they were still alive anyways.

I haven't thought about this in years and years. I remember it like it was yesterday. The things I remember most are the colors. The bar was incredibly amber. Somehow amber light oozed out of the pores of the walls. My grandfather's hair was pretty red a little on the brown side. The lawyer's hair was stark white. I was fascinated by the jukebox. It was right by the door and next to that was a cigarette machine that was just as equally fascinating. The things you remember.

Unconsious Muttering stolen from Spinning Girl

1. Soldier :: dead
   
2. Lipton :: tea
   
3. Reason:: why?
   
4. Terms :: of endearment
   
5. Positive :: reaction
   
6. Example :: I.E.
   
7. Legacy :: Michael Douglas?
   
8. Solo :: sex
   
9. Instrument :: tool
   
10. Later :: now