700 channels and nothing is on

I spent much of this weekend at home, in bed or on the couch, with some kind of severe stomach ailment. You know how you think that there is going to be good cheesy television on when you are sick? Like "Lifetime" television movies starring Tori Spelling as a good girl who became a crack whore who sleeps with the local minister/mayor and who is a bookie for mobsters on the side? Well, apparantly those movies are only on TV when you are NOT sick.
That is why I buy good cheesy movies on dvd. Like Sense and Sensibility, Practical Magic, Sweet November and Timeline, all of which got watched over the course of this weekend. "Watched" being a variable term here as I sort of dozed through parts of them. Of course, it isn't like I hadn't seen them before.
You know what are not good movies to watch when you are sick? Anything in a foreign language that you don't speak. Because you feel obligated to keep your eyes open to keep up with the subtitles. Stupid Swimming Pool; I didn't need to see how you ended anyhow.

Cinema Verite

From today's Boston.com:

The uniflix: Date night made easy
Alright fellas, you’re in a semi-new relationship and have decided to pack it in for the night and watch a few DVD rentals. This is the most crucial point in your relationship thus far. No worries. The Lighter Side proudly introduces something we like to call the “uniflix,” a film to please the ladies without losing your 'so-called' edge.

She isn’t going to cuddle up next to you and watch “The Godfather,” or “Braveheart,” or “The Usual Suspects,” even though those movies rock! But stick to these films and you should be on Easy Street anytime you two lovebirds decide to make it a watch-tv-at-home night.

Uh, stop right there, Boston.com. I would watch ANY of those movies anytime, anywhere. In fact, I can quote much of the dialogue from those three movies without thinking about it.

Fellahs, you can start beating down my door any time now.

Dancing Queen

This morning, I got invited by my friend MP to go to a bhangra dance class tomorrow. The highly coincidental thing about that is that I was watching Bride and Prejudice for the third time last night, and I was watching the dancing scenes really carefully. Man, that stuff is HARD. At least, it looks hard to me. In fact, in watching the Behind the Scenes about the making of the film, Naveen Andrews expressed some initial concern about his ability to do the dancing and the need to perhaps hire a body double. But he ended up learning to do the moves himself. Hmmmm...
Will I end up making an ass out of myself? Yes.
Would it be good exercise? Yes.
Do I like the music? Yes.
Does it start at the same time I usually put on my pajamas? Yes.
Would it be a good story to tell people about afterwards? Yes.
Am I a chicken shit? Yes.
Do I need to get over being a self-conscious chicken shit? Yes.
Pros outweight the cons, and I suppose that I should at least TRY so that I won't be accused of being a "Will Darcy." But at least I know better than to say to someone: "I'm a hopeless dancer, but this looks like you just screw in a light bulb with one hand and pat the dog with the other." Yikes. Maybe I should look into hiring a body double.

Back to school

My youngest sister had her first week teaching last week; she is teaching history to high school freshmen. That is something totally unappealing to me, but she seems to really like it, although there definitely are some interesting people in her class, like the 14 year old girl who is pregnant. Just hearing about that person made my uterus give an involuntary spasm. (No babies, no babies.)

I was in my car driving late last night, and I started to think about what I would want to teach if I were a high school teacher. Hands down it would be geometry. I would explain that solving proofs is just like playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". Instead of connecting movie stars through films, you connect (or prove) statements through theorums. I wish someone had told me that in high school; I would have gotten "A"s right off!

What are you thinking about? Whirlpool.

Neens and I had one of those mornings sans boss and spent much of the time talking about the bigger questions in life: love, jobs, gay marriage and Target. It was interesting.

But now the boss is in, and we spend a lot of time looking over our monitors giving each other funny looks.

Oh the workplace, how thee totally sucks.

The Price of Rising Water

From today's NY Times, an article called "Police and Owners Begin to Challenge Looters" in New Orleans:

Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said she was "furious" about the looting.
"What angers me the most is disasters tend to bring out the best in everybody, and that's what we expected to see," Ms. Blanco said at a news conference. "Instead, it brought out the worst."
All sizes and types of stores, from Wal-Mart to the Rite Aid to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop, turned into bazaars of free merchandise.
Some frightened homeowners took security into their own hands.
John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.
One said, "We want that generator," he recalled.
"I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum," Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. "They scattered."
He smiled and added, "You've heard of law west of the Pecos. This is law west of Canal Street."
Though no one excused the stealing, many officials were careful not to depict every looter as a petty thief.
"Had New York been closed off on 9/11, who can say what they would have done?" said Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, vice president of the New Orleans City Council. "When there's no food, no water, no sanitation, who can say what you'd do? People were trying to protect their children. I don't condone lawlessness, but this doesn't represent the generous people of New Orleans."

I feel like the things going on in New Orleans are happening on another planet, or at least not here, not now, in the 21st century. This is like Tombstone or Deadwood, circa 1875. Next thing you know, a modern day Dalton Gang is going to end up on Canal Street, and there is going to be a stand-off between law enforcement and the looters, or "liberators", depending on where you are getting your information.

The sad thing is that there are plenty of people looking only for the basic necessities to get their families: food, clean water, first aid and a clean dry bed. However, an HP DeskJet printer is not going to do that for you. Neither are guns stolen from WalMart (I hope Michael Moore is celebrating the irony), jewelery, cases of Coors Light or large screen televisions. Especially when people are going to be lucky to get power back in two - four MONTHS.

I can only imagine how desperate these people are feeling right now, especially since so many of them have lost everything, all of their material possessions, and are going to end up as refugees in Texas. But rule of law must be restored, order must prevail, if for no other reason than to protect the people who are trying to rescue those still in harm's way.