Little Miss Sunshine

Tree reviewed this movie when it was out in theaters. I just watched it this afternoon, and I loved it. The casting was perfect. I've loved Toni Collete ever since Muriel's Wedding and she's so good in this. Alan Arkin. What can I say about him? He's absolutely fantastic in everything he does. (I loved his rant about having chicken for dinner, and his advice to his grandson "fuck as many women as you can. Not just one woman, but many women. I'm telling you fuck as many women as you can!") I thought Steve Carell would bomb playing this dark, suicidal character. I wondered if he could pull it off . . if I'd see Michael Scott in his performance. But he's a very versatile performer and very good in this. The kids who played Olive and her brother were terrifica as well. Greg Kinnear was right on target too.
I noticed the guy who plays obnoxious Hodges on CSI played a sympathetic part as the pageant musical director. Little Miss Sunshine gets an A.

An Evangelical to watch . . . become the next scandal

This is Stephan (sic) Munsey. I was flipping TV channels and landed on some Christian broadcasting on the Lesea Network. This yahoo is so very strange looking--much different from this photo. He has a dramatic combover, very puffy and blotchy face and eyebrows that looked as if they were lifted by a bad cosmetic surgeon. Anyway, he was preaching on the "Harvest Show." He wants people to call in and pledge 77 dollars a month for ten months. Supposedly great things will happen to you if you do his bidding. He isn't even a captive speaker like some evangelicals. He used poor grammar, with long pauses between words. Every five minutes or so, he'd cock his head and listen. Then he'd say that he was speaking to a specific someone "out there," but he didn't know to who(m). But God was telling him, to tell us, that if we'd call and pledge (even though Satan may want to hold us back) $77 a month for ten months that we would A) be healed, or B) know financial gain, or C) find the mate we longed for. wtf?
I looked him up on Google and his church is in upstate Indiana in a small town called Munster and from this picture he evidentally used to have a fundraiser and requested people pledge FORTY-NINE dollars a month for ten months.
Anyway, he's a scandal waiting to happen. Trust me on this. Why do evangelical Christians (some are probably intelligent functioning adults) fall for people like this yahoo? He was like a train wreck. I wanted to look away, but couldn't.

For Spidey**

Idealistic, Man of Honor Liberal George McGovern

The evil racist George Wallace

Famous mugshots of 2006

Dubya and imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

I love Ed

My new favorite show is on HGTV Sundays at 10pm and is called Living with Ed.
Ed Begley, Jr. has been an environmentalist since 1970 and lives in a small house in Studio City CA--a far cry from the "normal" "successful" Hollywood actor. His house is all-green: He generates his own electricity (he bikes 50 minutes to power the toaster to make his morning toast,) has solar panels atop his house, has a white picket fence made out of recycled milk jugs,catches rainwater in barrels to recycle it, and buys post consumer recycled paper and other goods, and recycles paper and plastic products. He "lives simply so that others may simply live." He's forever on the roof doing something--sweeping and cleaning the solar panels, cleaning gutters, etc. His wife worries that 1. he'll fall off ("I'd never know how to do all this solar stuff if he dies") and 2. wonders if his life insurance policy is paid and up-to-date.

He's a Green Dream. Except, of course to his wife Rachelle, who came to Hollywood to become an actress and live in an Aaron Spelling-type house. She says she can't leave home without returning to something else Ed's cooked up . . he calls her "the Commandant." LOL. He runs the house like a ship "the SS Begley," and she whines "It's not a ship, Ed! It's a house!" A modern day Green Acres.
It's both fun and informative--it's Funormative!!! And I love Ed Begley, Jr!!

Ed's Website

Evy in the trashcan

We were supposed to get an inch of snow overnight. We didn’t. Maybe it will come today.

My M-i-l’s 83rd birthday was this past weekend. She’s doing well.

I have about fifteen half burned candles around this house. I get tired of the scent about half way through, and then they sit around getting dusty. I’ll throw them out soon or later.

I spent Sunday cleaning up our bedroom. It was a mess and now it’s not (for the time being.)

I threw away two big garbage bags full of magazines. I guess I could have taken them to work and distributed them there, but the bags were heavy as hell and I didn’t want to lug that shit around. So I pitched them into the garbage cans (or dustbin as Meme would say?)

I’m taking a few books to work to give to the two other readers I know. I was going to throw them away but couldn’t do it. Don’t tell, but the one book I did throw away was Evy’s bigass Bill Bailey Aint Coming Home book. I’m not even going to apologize for it. What’s done is done. No looking back. C’est la vie.

My computer desk really needs to be straightened up. There are piles here and there.

We have a three day weekend coming up, thanks to MLK, Jr. Thanks Marty! RIP.

Books

I made two good purchases at a half priced bookshop the other day.

1. The Creaky Traveler in Ireland (Clare, Kerry and West Cork) A journey for the mobile but not agile by Warren Rovetch. I love travel books on Ireland, and have been to Clare and West Cork so I’m excited to read his stories and what places there he finds of interest.

2. Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. I’m reading this one now and it’s very interesting. After reading a New York Times piece quoting a Chinese scholar which stated: “belief in Buddhism . . . has curbed his appetite for books,” Mr. Cha says, “To read more is a handicap. It is better to keep your own mind free and not to let the thinking of others interfere with your own free thinking,” Schwartz thought about the whole Zen thing of “empty is full”, and “full is empty”, and writes about all the books that had influenced her life and helped shape her as a person.
You might now thinking reading a book about books is boring. It’s not. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

"You stink!"

Yesterday a few of us at work were eating lunch together. Two whities, one Asian (who has lived in this country for over 25 years) and two African Americans. All women but one black man. No, this isn’t a set up for a joke. I mention race because it’s an integral part of the story. I forgot how the topic came up but here’s how the conversation went:

Asian chimed in with “You Americans stink.”

The whities and the blacks all exclaimed, “What do you mean, ‘we stink’?”

Asian: I can smell your farts through your clothes.

(quizzical looks from us)

Black woman: And you don’t pass gas?

Asian: Yes, but I go to the bathroom and pull down my pants first.

We all LOL’d.

Me: Well you can be sure that your husband and son don’t go to the bathroom to fart!

Asian: Oh, yes they do!

Black man: Don’t people in your old country just shit in holes in the floor and out in the field? Talk about STINK!

Asian: They do in China! But I am Taiwanese! We poop in toilet!

White woman: Americans spend billions and billions every year on deodorants, creams, shampoo, lotions. We don’t stink any more than any other people on this planet.

Asian: No matter. Farts still stink through your clothes.

Black woman: Then get your nose out of our asses!



No point to the story. I just wanted to share some intellectual lunch time chat.

Good Morning, Mon!

For the first twenty minutes of last night's Back from Jamaica episode of The Office, I was thinking "what the heck is that in Michael's hair (mon)??" I knew it was the colors of Jamaica's flag but couldn't figure out what it was. It was his dreadlock bead! Hahahahahaha He was sporting an eighth of an inch dreadlock!
I knew a guy who went to Jamaica one summer, and he too talked like a Jamaican ("hey mon" this and "hey mon" that) upon his return for nearly a month until someone said, "Say that one more time and I'll beat you to a bloody pulp!"
The look on Michael's face when he saw he sent the sexy Jan picture to the PACKAGING Department instead of Todd (Fudge) PACKER was beautiful to behold. Kind of like he was going to vomit a little in his mouth.

Rummy Saddam and Cheese

Rummy and Saddam when they were friendly (and one was alive)

Anyway, Kraft Cheese is on my shit list this week. I bought some of their parmesan cheese in the new self grater package and hated it. The grater would not grate (a bad thing) so I had to destroy the grater packaging just to get the freaking cheeese out and grate it with my rasp. The cheese sucked----very low quality parm. I emailed Kraft and told them of my displeasure. So what do they send me? Not a check for my two dollars and something that the nasty stuff cost me-----but a coupon for another self-grating package of their wet cheese. Good customer service Kraft! (rolls eyes)

So what do Rummy, Saddam, and wet, gross cheese have in common? I don't know--you tell me.

Wednesday, feels like Tuesday

I went back to work yesterday for the first time since the holidays. Blech. The first day back is always full of blech.

LP goes back to school today. Or he would but he has a follow up doctor's appointment and tests at Riley so he has a reprieve. It's back to the books for him tomorrow ("back to the books"...har. Like that'll happen)

I had coffee, orange juice, rye toast and an egg with pepper flakes on it for breakfast.

The cat is running from one end of the home to the other this morning. When she's like this, BP calls her a "thundering herd of cat."

That, is all.

The way I visualize numbers and months

Numbers


Here’s how I’ve always seen numbers: Approximately four feet in front of me there is a straight line that starts at the tip of my left foot and goes straight across the floor toward my right foot and passes it. Number ONE starts at my left foot and in four feet increments other numbers follow. When you get to TEN, the line makes a 90 degree right angle in my direction and the double digit “teenage” numbers resume on the line until it hits TWENTY. At TWENTY the line makes another 90 degree right angle away from my direction and continues on through the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and so on into infinity. I’ve always thought it was odd that the 11 through 19 teenage years differentiate themselves from all the other years.




Months

Imagine an ellipse. Kind of an oval, certainly not a round circle. An ellipse, kinda like a racetrack. If you looked at the racetrack as an elliptical clock, at eleven o’clock—out towards the upper left-hand side would begin the month of January. Don’t ask me why---it just has always started from that place. Working clockwise, space the months and seasons all the way around the ellipse. Toward the first curve is May and starts Spring, the second curve of the track starts Summer and the third curve starts Autumn.


I visualize man made time this way. I always have—ever since I first learned to tell time and learn the months of the year. Anyway, Happy New Year---at the eleven o-clock space near the top of the Ellipse!

TV's Funniest Lines of 2006

Hate Books
''Earlier today, Bob Woodward's new book came out, and it claims the Bush administration has bungled the war in Iraq. When reached for comment, President Bush said, 'Just one more reason to hate books.'''CONAN O'BRIEN, ON LATE NIGHT



Magic Beans
''I always knew the branch would shut down some day; I just figured it would be because Michael sold the building for some magic beans.''JIM (JOHN KRASINSKI), AFTER HEARING THAT THE SCRANTON BUREAU WAS CLOSING, ON THE OFFICE



What you say is Crap
''I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point, but I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap.''DAVID LETTERMAN TO GUEST BILL O'REILLY, ON THE LATE SHOW



Still shot in the face
''Hold on a second.... Jon, I'm being told Whittington's condition has now been upgraded from 'stable' to 'stable, but still shot in the face by the Vice President.'''ED HELMS, FAKE REPORTING ON THE HEALTH OF HARRY WHITTINGTON FROM ''OUTSIDE A HOSPITAL IN CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS,'' ON THE DAILY SHOW



More hardship
''We've gone through more hardships than the Jews and Charlie Brown put together.''HOMER TO MARGE, AFTER SOMEONE ASKS THE DUO FOR MARRIAGE COUNSELING, ON THE SIMPSONS




Swatches
''Angelina Jolie says she is going to adopt another baby, but she hasn't decided if the baby will be black, Asian, or white. Jolie said, 'I'm gonna spend the weekend looking at swatches.'''CONAN O'BRIEN, ON LATE NIGHT




Focus
''I don't go hunting for celebrity babies. I have 116 other things to do, thank you, Billy. You need another job. I mean, you have potential as a human being. This may not be right for you. Seriously, can you focus on other things?''JEREMY PIVEN, TO PRESHOW HOST BILLY BUSH, WHO ASKED IF PIVEN HAD MET VIOLET AFFLECK OR SURI CRUISE, ON THE 2006 EMMY RED CARPET SPECIAL


MORE FUNNIEST LINES

If You Had 15 Seconds

15 Seconds

I blame Meme

I feel funny. No funny ha ha, funny strange. I blame Meme. Not for any concrete reason, but because I can.
---------
French Lick Casino was beautiful but the service was atrocious . . . at check-in, housekeeping, at the restaurant, and in the casino. I say that if you’re going to an upscale restaurant that changes $43 for a steak, the service needs to be outstanding. Silly me.

The rooms were nice, though. LP asked his Aunt if he could bring Jordan with him (“it’ll be more fun.”) and so he did. The boys got their own room and were scoping girls (or “females” as young white-as-black males call them) from the get go. Both boys were wonderfully behaved believe it or not. Jordan said that the hotel was just like a “celebrity hotel” and the high, white down comfort-ed bed was like “sleeping in a cloud.”

Both boys were nice to my niece and actually let her hang around with them and took her swimming a few times. Then they hung out in the resort’s bowling alley and shops. LP talked this saleslady into letting him try on this $8000 mink coat. LOL. Good grief.

I lost about $300 (your good luck wishes meant CRAP) but had fun at the $1 slots. I played slots with my Mom and she got a kick out of the Haywire machines—the slots that go crazy and sometimes pay double or triple.

The second day when we were broke Mom, Aunt Pat and I played 5 cent Sevens and Butterflies slots. That was actually fun. Mom hit a 300 coin pot and was excited until she remembered it was nickels and amounted to $15 or something like that.

BP enjoyed himself at the craps table and walked away with a $35 profit and was pleased as punch. Me to BP: WE CAN’T RETIRE ON A 35 DOLLAR PROFIT!!! He woke me up on my birthday with a lusty “I’ve never had a blow job from a 50 year old before,” to which I replied, “Well, let’s just keep that streak going for you, shall we?”

We're leaving for the casino in a few hours.
Don't miss me too much.
We'll be back before you know it.
Wish me the Midas Touch.

Here’s an update on my Christmas day.

Made coffee.

Made my “special salad” to take to the dinner.


Had to wake the Ps up to open gifts cause we were due at my sister’s house at noon.


Went to my oldest sister’s. All family was present except my whackjob sister.

Opened more gifts.

Had a fight with a middle sister.

Made up with my middle sister.

It rained.

Had a wonderful dinner.

Walked their dog---one of the friendliest, sweetest dogs in the world.

Helped clean up after dinner.

Played all different kinds of poker with Mom, two sisters, brother, B-in-L, and BP drifted in and out of the games.

Came home.

Relaxed.

Watched Christmas Deal or No Deal and tried to win $100,000 (I didn’t)

LP went over to Jordan’s to see his Christmas loot. When they were on the phone, LP said Jordan wanted to talk to me:

J: Merry Christmas, Liam’s mama!!

Me: Thanks! Did you have a great one?

J: Yes. Did you get what you wanted?

Me: All I want is a loving, wonderful son who obeys and does well in school and is a joy.

J: Well, then you got what you wanted!

(LOL)


We had a nice day.

I feel better today. Not at 100% but better. I slept on the couch most of yesterday day. Got up and took a bath, then went to bed at 9, and slept to about 8 this morning.
I have a headache, and I need to go do some last minute things--grocery, and wrap some gifts Liam bought. And my house is a mess. The kitchen's a mess. I need to vacuum the living room. I need to clean the bathroom. Yuck.
Merry Christmas Eve.