You're still awesome. If you weren't blocked at my job, I'd have never strayed. You do things that facebook still can't do, or does very poorly, and that google+ either pats itself on the back for doing or thinks it doesn't have to.

I stopped biting my nails about ten years ago. I think I am prouder of that than of having quit smoking (22 years and counting).

Cronenburg's Crash. This is one of those instances when checking the "R" version on the DVD menu probably would have served the story more than the NC-17. So much gratuitous porn! I wish we would have watched it in the bedroom instead of the living room - the poor kids had to be shooed away. They went willingly, as it got awkward.

See it with someone you love with the clicker in hand to fast forward to the good bits. Then, read the book.

From this morning's Riverkids newsletter:

Hello from Singapore and Cambodia!

Riverkids has more than 300 children now, and we'll hit the big 400 by Christmas. Babies are born, other groups refer children from trafficking families to us, and there is just so much to do!

We need to fund our Baby Bellies program that provides extra food for malnourished wee ones.

Like the little guy who is all skinny legs from being born a premie and orphaned early. Now when he sees our nurse walk by in the slum, he reaches out and demands firmly in Khmer for "milk! milk!" because she's the lady who brings the milk! He's getting ready to walk now and his family are so happy.

Or the ten month old baby who had been fed sugared water by her desperate siblings because their mother spent everything on alcohol. We helped the little sister to make the milk bottles up and get the baby fed at Riverkids, so her mother couldn't sell the milk to buy another drink.

DONATION LINK HERE:
http://www.riverkidsproject.org/dynamic/riverkids-programs/baby-bellies/

Papillion one of the longest, meanderingest, and goriest movies I'd seen in a while.

The book, however, has been described as a fairly interesting instruction for survival. It was in the bookcase when I was growing up but looked to dry (masculine) for me at the time.

Bonus: reading up on the book led me to learning more than I ever wanted about how to stick useful things up your butt.

The 80/20 rule (Pareto principle). The principle of least effort. The path of least resistance.

These ideas have been used as rules of thumb to describe how people live their lives. Is it true that you can reach 80% of any given goal by giving just 20% of the effort you would need to reach 100%? Is 80% enough? More than enough? Or as good as nothing?

Discuss amongst yourselves, I have to get to work.

Remember when Live Journal was this special magical place full of friends and laughter? Me neither.

We watched Transformers movie. Despite the plot being so incredibly holey that I could barely follow it, I liked it a lot. I especially liked all the tongue in cheek title and tag line drops and references to classic movies of the genre - like the scene with Sam being chased by Bumblebee while on the pink bike with the basket - lovely inversion of the bicycle scene in E.T..

Of course, I'm old enough to remember the original series and they were still showing the reruns and selling the toys when Izaac was small. We had tons of the toys, so it was quite nostalgic.



I really miss Bernie Mac.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.


Have I ever mentioned my little thing for Walter Matthau?

Entertaining in a way that was completely dependent on the time and place depicted. I can't imagine the re-make being any good at all.

- Have a cat named Professor Pantalones or PePe for short.
- Find something I'm good at to compete in, because I'm really competitive and need to channel it somewhere and also then I will be able to have an outlet for my need to compare myself to other people.
- I am not really into traveling but I would like to see Machu Pichu and also go to New Zealand and/or Australia.
-Get the Powerthirst video out of my head.

I have been taking a perverse pleasure in doing all my silly quizzes on facebook. Because facebook is lame.

"Count to ten first. Improves your aim."

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, one of my childhood favorites. It occurred to me on the re-watching that this nonsensical, nonlinear bit of hilarious fluff is the ancestor of many of wacky sixties movie. There was even a gorilla.

Red Planet. I can't even remember putting it my netflix queue, but I'm sure I thought it had something to do with the Heinlein book. It didn't.

It was pretty dull but mercifully short, and hey, there were explosions. I really like movies with explosions.

Not too long ago I made a post about what is lost when living in boom times.

I wonder if in the current economy, people will once again learn the art of reusing a tea bag. Or at least, something like a high-quality, "good" leather handbag (to use just one example from my own life) once again becomes something to aspire to when you're growing up, instead of an everyday throw-it-out-next-season item. I am hopeful that in the end, we might have a more stable society, but unfortunately I think we just always refuse to learn, and boom-bust-boom-bust is just the way it goes.

Poll #1352913
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

Everytime I see or hear Hugh Jackman's name, I think Huge Assman.

UPDATE, very appropriate meme minute:

There were a bunch of these bits/odds/ends of sod from the golf course along the road. It seemed really wasteful to me, but maybe there's a reason it's not viable to stick them all together like pie crust. I was very tempted to bring a few home and... we don't have a yard. Or a lawn. So I left it there. Maybe it could have gone in the hole in the sidewalk where the sycamore grows out front, where people litter and leave dog poop.


They have removed the modern wings to the old public health hospital.


First blossoms of spring!

can_i_eat_this reminded me of the good old days of live journal.

*sniff*

Hey moonchyld1, remember when you and Adam and Heather used to go to random journals and stage a flame war in their comment pages? Hahaha, good times.

From beatonna



I am just jealous though. I always look like ass on the facebook tags. WHY OH WHY CAN'T I FIND MY PARTY PICTURE FACE? Everytime I try to make one, I usually end up looking like I've had a stroke.

PLACE YOUR BITS OF NEWS/GOSSIP/UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMORS ABOUT THE GREAT 2009 LJ EMPLOYEE MASSACRE LAYOFFS IN THE COMMENTS HERE.

Usually we put some on the tree, and we forgot. Maybe I'll pick some up half price later.

The Bourne Identity made me want to fuck Matt Damon.

Thanks for the Thanksgiving greeting stilllove. I actually laughed out loud. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

Good morning ladies and gentlemen...
Good morning ladies and gents!
Are you ready to vote?
Are you ready to vote?

Would you like to be a voter with me?
Would you like to be a voter with me?
Would you like to be a voter with me?

Poll #1290299
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

True or false: the salad fork is the red-haired stepchild of the cultery drawer.

Do you regularly use the butter spreader?

As long as we're talking about butter...

The typefaces of the seventies. Something about those bold roundy letters remind me of the good moments of my childhood. Ingramma light is awesome.

To be clear: this means giant deadly bug monsters live outside your door. They have killed people you know and love, you have to fight them every day, you can't just go outside without a weapon. On the other hand, no one has ever stuck a baby in the microwave on this earth.

Poll #1289065
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

Which earth would you rather live on?

Edited to add: Maybe I made this too easy. Let's add EXTREME WEATHER to the bugs.

It is important to know, however, that while there is always an element of surprise in both the bug attacks and bugs and the weather, there is also an element of fairness in that there are good storm shelters everywhere and that the bugs are always able to be killed in a fair fight, and that no one is exempt from bug-fighting. Neither the rich nor the virtuous can guarantee that they will not be attacked by a bug when they least expect it.

I impulsively bought myself All About Braising by Molly Stevens a few weeks back.



I haven't used it yet because it's too beautiful and new to bring into my kitchen. *sigh*


I think I might use the porter-and-maple glazed rib recipe on the chicken thighs, with some adjustments. Either that or chicken and dumplings. It's nice and foggy and cozy at my house right now.

Update: Braising will have to wait for another day. I'm baking them with herbs, salt, balsamic vinegar, pureed garlic, onions, and honey. My poor cookbook is still a virgin. :-(

Lunch.

Walk.

How to write a horoscope.

Poll #1280968
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

How are you going through life?

jette (explaining that she tends to talk and post on twitter more and more and LJ and texting less and less because other people are): Twitter's, like, the thing now.

swaz: When you die, I'm going to have your tombstone read, "death is the thing now."

Canal to nowhere.

Flying over Yosemite.

Sign at the SF VA.

On one of my kid's classroom's white boards when I was doing start of school clean up a couple of months ago. Welcome to SFUSD.

In other news, if you don't include loved ones that I am related to by blood or ceremony, I can count the number of people I truly give a fuck about anymore on one hand, and I'm working on being able to count them on my thumbs. I feel so much freer now.

Other people read celebrity gossip sites, I like to read real estate blogs.

Much like movie stars, real estate can be unintentionally hilarious:



Keeping it Realtor - a survey of those real estate ads on bus benches.



Lovely Listing, showing you the worst in real estate photography.

Twitter is down. :-(

Horoscope for today:

Seriousness is a choice. Things have exactly the weight and importance you assign to them. If you're not sure what credence to give the statements you hear it's best to err on the side of levity.

I think this should be the horoscope for everyone who is ever on the internet.

Mackerel Currency Economy.

They canceled "Clear Blue Water?" An actually funny and heartwarming strip about famliy life gets canceled but the warmed over strips of the bland suburban Canadian family is the song that never ends? Bleh.

I've been thinking about friendship for a long time, about how important it is to me, and how seriously I take it... I guess I'm just a fool for love.

buz put defining what I mean by real friendship better than I ever could.

I have lots of party friends who I love and adore, but the really true friends in my life are like gold, and not just because they are few and far between. /sappy

In my case, I get to sleep with my bff, so yeah, I'm a lucky girl! /double gross sappiness with extra corn in it.

My horoscope says that I need to make sure that everyone has fun tomorrow.

Tangentially, I think Keith Olbermann is one of the sexiest motherfuckers on this planet.

I need a new smart phone and I pretty much ONLY use my phone for web and texting. I did happily use my Treo for listening to streaming audio before the audio jack broke a minute after the hardware warranty ended. Being able to hear what people say when I do actually use it as a phone would be pretty damned sweet and a novelty after my Palm.

ALSO: I will probably drop this thing at least once a week or so, so keep that in mind with your suggestions. ;-)

Poll #1265847 they don't actually make you smart
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Which one do I want?

Things I liked about my Palm 700p: cheap and kind of fast data plan, being able to make it into a modem. That's pretty much it. I'd like to keep those two things.. my data plan is like 15 a month, unlimited, right now.