Letters to Holly

Friday, May 26

Viva La Friday

The wife is definitely sick, but she won't stay in the Sick Bed. Her comfort food apparently is Egg Drop Soup as she asked me to pick some up for dinner. We watched a "MythBusters" episode on the TiFaux, and I learned yesterday that the show's cute gal Kari has posed for a men's magazine. The online pictures are almost despressing. They took a casual-attire tomboy and made her into a plastic fetish pin-up. All of her natural appeal is spackled over. There's no charm to it whatsoever.

Having no idea what to do for Your Sister's birthday, she has asked us to shelve any gifts and gestures until the summer school break.

We heard from Gilles and Valerie of the French Rotary Club. Both are filing through their dozens of photos taken here, and Gilles plans to bring his family back to the area for a vacation this summer.

The tide seems to be turning in favor of X3. Major outlets are hailing the film, countering the early buzz by finicky fanboys.

Moving Picture of the Day

This is what it would look like if you repackaged The Ten Commandments as a romantic high-school comedy.

In the news

Bush and Blair offered a communal mea culpa yesterday for their tough talk and assumptions about occupying Iraq. Bush cited his "wanted dead or alive" fatwah on Osama and even the much ballyhooed "bring it on." Bush cited Abu Ghraib as an event that turned the tide, but that allows him to blame soldiers. The inability to back up cowboy swagger is as embarassing and seemingly lethal to his administration. Does anyone have faith that something will occur when he declares it?

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The new scuttlebutt over the Fitzgerald investigation of the Valerie Plame affair now says columnist Bob Novak (the guy who actually published the CIA agent's name) assured by Karl Rove that Novak wouldn't reveal his source. Another rumor earlier in the week had Cheney testifying against his former aide Scotter Libby. The best the administration can do here is postpone the bad news until after the November elections.

Thursday, May 25

I Have To Wait Til October?!

That's when the next new episode of "Lost" airs. Last night's season-ender was a solid show that moved focus away from the core group and toward characters that could only be previously considered peripheral. One brand-new character is apparently very significant now. We also saw the return of both a flashback person and a crash survivor. I'll say no more except this: I'm not sure I buy the answers provided because characters' perceptions and interpretations have become questionable. I TiFauxed the finale and will watch again this holiday weekend.

Oh, OK, one more thing. We are definitely now watching a science-fiction show.

I made pizza last night and again realized just how much better it is from the delivery or frozen stuff. I won't shoot down your work at Asheville Pizza because, if what I'm led to believe is true, you can win over the heart of any handsome stranger by showing him the dough-twirling trick. Not that you need any gimmicks, mind you. Your Sisiter and I have a homemade pizza pattern already: Half mushroom, half red pepper, all smothered in turkey pepperoni. Is good, jah. She's not feeling too well and fears a cold is coming on. She barely made it through last night's two-hour show. It's those damn school kids, bringing their bacterial debris into the classrooms. This won't keep me from seeing X3. I love her, but a man's gotta have his principles. And his ginormous tub o'popcorn with butter dispensed from a concession-stand caulking gun.

Our garden now hosts giant monarch caterpillars, and one thing I now know about giant monarch caterpillars is that they shit like rats, both in size and frequency. It's frightening until one considers that these things can fertilze an enire lawn by themselves.

I'm within the first 80 pages of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and it's already awesome. We meet a gang of wizards led by two former Hogwarts professors, and Harry is a surly cuss.

Picture of the Day
Downtown Memphis and the Big Muddy as seen from atop the Peabody Hotel. This is where the ducks waddle to the fountain twice a day. The bright light at the top of the other building is a sign for a magazine.


Wednesday, May 24

Anticipation

Feeling somewhat better but a tad rundown still. The season finale of “House” continues the show’s trends of baffling ailments and smart writing. Hugh Laurie owns this show. It’s a good time to be a Gregory as this is the first name shared by House and WWE cruiserweight champ Gregory Helms.

Tonight is the season finale of “Lost,” and if it’s anything like last year’s finale, it will again leave us quivering with impatience for the next season. Supposedly, we’re going to learn a lot about the crash and possibly the island. I have my suspicions about who might show up in the last ten minutes, and when I say “suspicions,” I mean “this is how I’d write it ‘cause it would rock and rock some more.”

Your Sister asked me if I would mind the company of a teacher friend when we watch X3 Saturday. I don’t mind, actually, unless she talks during the film, and then I would have to employ my telepathic catapult. I want people to enjoy themselves at movies. Really. But do it in your indoor voice, ‘kay?. I’ve leaned over and told complete strangers to put a sock in it. The online perpetual geek orgy is split on the film. Aintitcoolnews maven Harry Knowles hates it, but I contend he writes negative reviews of blockbusters to maintain the illusion of indy cred. It doesn’t matter what the early reviews say. I’m going to watch it. At times I can’t believe they made an X-Men film, and now they’ve made three. Astounding. My inner 12-yer-old is gobsmacked. He’s not so keen on the just released trailer for the upcoming Ghost Rider movie. This is a Marvel Comics property about a man possessed by a motorcycle-riding demon with a flaming skull for a head. It stars Nic Cage (who you might recall was initially cast as the new Superman). Good ole boys will stain the screen with their joy, but it looks cheap and formulaic. Of all the Marvel titles to adapt, they pick this one. Tragic.


Picture of the Day
What happens when a team decides to turn an annual San Francisco run into a recreation of Katamari Damacy? See here.

In the news
According to Heidi MacDonald, the two-part Persepolis graphic novel is being made into a feature cartoon. It’s a good title, an autobiography of an Iranian girl jostled by the growing cultural revolution of the 1970s. It’ll be interesting to see this turned into a movie as the comic, while packed with detail, reads as an illustrated diary. I think they need to use omniscient narration as we see in “Sex and the City.”

Tuesday, May 23

The Memphis Syndrome

The travel seems to have hit my system hard. The air-travel pressure has decompressed my tum-tum, I can’t get enough sleep, and my eyes are strained. Your Sister wonders if I’m sick, and I in turn wonder if she’s on to something. I start taking care of the pets-in-law for another week starting tonight, and that will keep me from mowing the lawn after work. I don’t see the grass getting more than a passing glance before Saturday, when I also hope to catch the new X-Men film. Early word is that there’s a significant scene at the very end of the credits.


Picture of the Day

The Taiwanese poster for Superman. Looks sharp except for the right hand. It's bent too much at the wrist.



In the news
From ESPN comes word that Tennessee women’s basketball coach “Pat Summitt became the first women's college basketball to top the $1 million salary mark, with a six-year extension that earns her $1.125 this season.” For many reasons, she IS college women’s basketball, and I suspect, the best coach never be asked to work in the NBA.

Monday, May 22

Back From Memphis

Even though I arrived at 5:30 yesterday afternoon, I’m still feeling the jet lag. Didn’t help that my hotel room had only decorative curtain flaps that did not glide together to block the window. The sun blasted me awake each morning at about 6 a.m.

The conference went well, with about 90 attendees including eight or so vendors. The majority of folks were younger than me, but we did have some folks who handily surpassed 40. It was a packed two days of seminars. My brain is en-full-inated. The food was great each night. The event started Thursday night with a get-to-know-you dinner followed by an Elvis impersonator. Not bad at all. We all got into the mood of it. I discovered the conference assigned newbies like myself with a mentor to help us fit in. I found my guy the next day. Friday was a mass of seminars orbiting a catfish lunch. That night we packed into two vans and rode to Beale Street. After a hearty, outdoor barbeque buffet, we hit the street. We walked to the Peabody Hotel where a family of ducks live on the roof and use elevators to visit the hotel lobby fountain. We went up to see them as they were locked up for the night and got a great view of the downtown Memphis and the Mighty Mississipp. Back inside, we sat down for drinks. I chose my default libation, the screwdriver. But this joint served it in a way I’d never had it: They fill up a glass with ice and vodka and give you a second glass full of orange juice. You mix your own drink. But the ice forces you to pour the juice over the vodka, and because it’s already a full tumbler, your first sips will knock you down. We visited the Hard Rock CafĂ© and perused the local businesses before heading back to the bus.

Saturday started with a two-hour grammar course. I think I was in the minority who enjoyed it. The night ended with an awards banquet (we got bupkis) and a swank dinner and dessert. Sunday, I weeded through the vendor freebies to determine what could fit in the suitcase. If the conference had any downside, it was the hotel location (apparently the Baghdad area of Memphis) and the lack of design seminars. In fact, the organization is debating internally whether to change the group’s name to include designers, writers, and IT guys. This was an editors’ group with info mainly for editors. I picked up some new ideas, but it was focused on just one facet of what I do.

My plan for today is to file through what I brought back and organize my workspace anew, if my groggy brain will allow.

During the trip, I read the following:

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls – Heinlein’s a good read for those times when you want to read something fluffy. Entire chapters of men handing down lectures on social ethics with scattered paragraphs of hard science and flirting.

Sebastian O – Grant Morrison’s the kind of comic book writer who doesn’t spell it all out for you. You have to reread the material to get the whole picture no matter who the artist is. Every title he’s written feels like it’s missing an expository issue. This comic is about a Wildean dandy seeking revenge on his former running buddies in a Victorian steampunk England. It also sets the stage for his epic Invisibles series which presaged, if not directly influenced, The Matrix.

Torso – After chasing Capone, Elliot Ness went to Cleveland just as a serial killer started leaving body parts all over town. It’s a good story that sadly feels less like a comic and more like an illustrated movie script.

Picture of the Day
A shaky screen capture of myself standing with Elvis. Experts immediately scoffed at its authenticity. And they can go explode.


In the news
Loathe as I am to spread conspiracy theories, I can’t help but wonder what was up with Barbaro in the Preakness. It’s just too odd a series of events to be coincidence. Someone is at fault, and the jockey might be the guy. Maybe he didn’t mean to screw it up. I dunno.

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Attorney general Alberto Gonzales said the government can prosecute reporters who publish classified material. This seems to say that reporters should be responsible for leaks from the government, not those federal employees who distribute classified info. This is clearly a “shooting the messenger” scenario, and one meant to spook the news outlets.