Lyrics, titles and images on the color blue

There's a blue flame inside of you So beautiful

Way To Blue.

I couldn't believe my luck
You in your new blue dress
Taking away my breath

Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder




White Roses For Blue Girls



Oh, what brought all this on? Well, apparently:

What color is your soul painted? Blue Your soul is painted the color blue, which embodies the characteristics of peace, patience, understanding, health, tranquility, protection, spiritual awareness, unity, harmony, calmness, coolness, confidence, dependability, loyalty, idealism, tackiness, and wisdom. Blue is the color of the element Water, and is symbolic of the ocean, sleep, twilight, and the sky. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Kurt Vonnegut, ladies and gentlemen:

Many years earlier, so long ago that I was a student at the University of Chicago, I had a conversation with my thesis advisor about the arts in general. At that time, I had no idea that I personally would go go into any sort of art.

He said, "You know what artists are?"

I didn't.

"Artists," he said, "are people who say 'I can't fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay, or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be!'"

About five years after that, he did what Hitler's Minister of Propaganda and his wife and their kids did at the end of World War Two. He swallowed potassium cyanide.

From Timequake.

Karma

I probably won't be seeing Evan Almighty any time before it hits cable. It just looks like the kind of yahoo comedy that confuses being funny with how loud it can be (the reviews suggest I'm not too far wrong).

However, I did get a kick out of seeing a clip during star Lauren Graham's appearance on Conan O'Brien this morning. In which it was revealed that the date of the great flood in this update on Noah's Ark is given as September 22.

September 22 is the birthday of my old girlfriend, Christina.

I suppose it's wrong of me to enjoy the idea of that date being linked with a great disaster (albeit ficticious) but...

Hear me calling out your name, I feel no shame

	BV made billions from creating a pill that makes people be happy constantly.
	... afterward, BV asked out a chair then made sweet, sweet love to it.
	'How will you be remembered in history books?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Their faith in me is touching.

You will be famous for writing a national bestseller You are very observant and tend to be the wallflower at parties. You are intuitive and know just how to communicate everything that you are feeling to those around you. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Embrace your deception-learn how to bend. Your worst inhibition's gonna psych you out in the end.

Your hidden talent is psychic You are able to foresee certain things, and prevent bad things from happening to yourself. It could just be a lot of common sense, but it’s probably something a little more. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Oh, what a relief

Are you smarter than a monkey?
	YES! You scored 63%, which means that you're 25% smarter than a monkey!
'Are you smarter than a monkey?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Well...I suppose there's an upside to this...

But I'd hate myself in the morning.

Baywatch Hasselhoff You are Baywatch Hasselhoff. You're up for running around on the beach with hotties, as well as tanning, smiling, and being as buff and sexy as being Hasselhoff will allow. You also like to think that you've actually saved a few lives as a lifeguard; but that's just the product of some other, far more sinister, psychological "quirk." Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now!

President Bush registers the lowest approval rating of his presidency—making him the least popular president since Nixon—in the new NEWSWEEK Poll.

In 19 months, George W. Bush will leave the White House for the last time. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests that he faces a steep climb if he hopes to coax the country back to his side before he goes. In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush’s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.

In 1974, at the height of Watergate, Ted Geisel, A.K.A. Dr. Seuss, accepted a dare from his friend the satirist Art Buchwald to write a political book. He sent Buchwald a copy of his Bright & Early reader Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now! with the name of the title character crossed out.

In its place, the name "Richard M. Nixon" was written in. With Geisel's permission, Buchwald reprinted the altered book in his syndicated column, thus:

The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Richard M. Nixon, will you please go now!

Can't think why I thought of that.

Onward!

...the White House cannot pin his rating on the war alone. Bush scores record or near record lows on every major issue: from the economy (34 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove) to health care (28 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove) to immigration (23 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove). And—in the worst news, perhaps, for the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Bush in 2008—50 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of terrorism and homeland security. Only 43 percent approve, on an issue that has been the GOP’s trump card in national elections since 9/11.

If there is any good news for Bush and the Republicans in the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, it’s that the Democratic-led Congress fares even worse than the president. Only 25 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.

Imagine how we'd feel if they actually started doing the job we elected them to do and getting things done. Or, to put it another way: Can we impeach them nooooooooooooooooooooooooow?

Newsweek poll via Mark Evanier, who thinks Bush's real ratings may be even lower than these numbers indicate. Why? Because (among other reasons):

We also have folks who may think Bush is a disaster but they like what he stands for...or at least what they thought he stood for when they punched out the chads by his name. To them, the fall of Bush is a victory for those who want to allow gay marriage, keep abortion legal, restrict gun ownership, etc. — so they won't say they disapprove of him even though they do. (I heard a guy on C-Span the other day who seemed to think that if Bush's approval rating gets low enough, John Kerry gets to finish out his term.)

If only.

(It's growin green, Its growin green) Well, darlin' doncha ever stop to wonder?

Sometimes it's only the thought that there are things like this out there in the world, waiting for me, which keeps me from swallowing cyanide. A nice-looking young woman, my favorite color...Season cycle go from death to life.

Source.

Brazil doesn't deserve to be the birthplace of Braga women

Sonia Braga is an actress possibly best known in this country for her role as the title character in the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman. To those of us with a more transatlantic eye, her steamy, bombshell sexuality and frequent nude appearances in magazines and Portuguese-language films through the late '80s are well-remembered.

But she has also been nominated for and/or won a handful of acting awards, so don't make the mistake of thinking this is another Jessica Alba. Braga would, and does, have much to offer even if she didn't look so fabulously sexy hot; she's continued to work into her 40s and beyond.
On a personal note, IMO, in the underrated 1988 romantic comedy/spoof Moon Over Parador, she says "I love you" better than any other movie star ever.

Her niece, Alice, has just started following in her footsteps.



My point is, when I see the words "sexy" and "Brazilian" I think of the Braga women. So why am I now saying that the country which was good enough to give them to the world is no longer worthy of them?

Because.

This is a Brazilian ad for a light yogurt. I saw it on Feministing. I don't know about you, but my initial response is: I'd like to have sex with that woman. That was before I learned that this is, apparently, not what my reaction is supposed to be. No, no. See, the tagline for this ad is:

Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.

Do I really need to say any more?

It's all in how you look at it.

In a fourth-season episode of current nick-at-nite staple Roseanne, "Dan and Arnie struggle to bring their bowling team out of last place." Typical of this show at its blue-collar best, they're not trying to win first place...they just don't want to be last.

When they finally succeed, they celebrate with a chant. Not "We're number one!" But: "There's someone worse than us! There's someone worse than us!"

On a completely unrelated matter...

China has overtaken the United States as the world's top producer of carbon dioxide emissions - the biggest man-made contributor to global warming - based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says.

The group's analysis makes sense and had been predicted to happen by 2009 or 2010, said experts from the United Nations and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and outside academics.

Bert Metz, a senior researcher at the Dutch agency and a leading expert on efforts to battle global warming, said the analysis was done using methods and data that "are the best currently available."

This means that "Chinese contributions to global CO2 emissions are getting more important," Metz said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

There's more if you can take it. But first...join me, won't you? All together:

There's someone worse than us! There's someone worse than us!

Larger than life and twice as ugly

Ah, Texas. The state that should serve as a warning to us all. Considering it's where we first saw what kind of leader George W. Bush would be, and it's where most of his cronies seem to come from. To say nothing of the fact that it's the home of the Chainsaw Massacre.

Ok, what I'm doing here is called burying the lead. Because I wanted to ease you into this gently. Take a deep breath.

In Austin, Texas today, two men driving in a car struck and injured a little girl. The driver had gotten out of the car to check on her, when a group of men attacked him. His passenger got out to help and the driver was able to get away.

The crowd beat the passenger to death.

The girl was taken to the hospital, her injuries are said to be non life-threatening.

You see it, don't you?

A completely misdirected overreaction that does nothing for anyone it might have been said to be for, and ends with the tragedy of needless death.

I don't have to draw you a picture.

Texas. If I had to live there, you'd have to drug me...

Things I've Found In Books

So I'm reading Terry Gilliam: Interviews. In the introduction to one conducted by David Morgan in 1991, we find the following assertion:

While Gilliam's films away from Python-Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil and Munchausen-are noted for their wild designs and special effects, the stories each hinge on clashes between unyielding or oppressive social orders and the efforts of a visionary few to break through calcified modes of behavior and thinking.

No, they don't.

In Brazil, Sam Lowry isn't trying to break through any part of the bureaucratic future-retro police state in which he lives, he just wants to fly away and escape with the girl of his dreams. That's why the ending, as downbeat as it is, is so satisfying: Dramatically speaking, he gets what he deserves.

In Time Bandits, Kevin just wants to have an adventure, the dwarves just want to plunder the treasures of history. Frankly, the only character in the movie who is making any kind of an effort "to break through calcified modes of behavior and thinking" at all is...

...Evil. And he's vanquished in the end (if only temporarily) by a Supreme Being symbolized as a fusty schoolmaster-the very picture of a "calcified mode of behavior."

In Munchausen, okay, fair, I suppose you could say that the Baron and company are visionaries trying to break through the walls of what some call reality. But saying that makes it sound like a much more argumentative, heavier film than it is, so let's not.

Finally, in Jabberwocky Dennis, like Sam, isn't trying to have any adventures, but the "oppressive social order" depicted in the film rewards him in spite of himself.

That's why the ending is so ironic.

Sorry, but few things ruffle my feathers like journalists twisting stories to fit their half-baked theories. I don't like it when they do it about the army or the republican party, and I certainly don't like it when they do it about two or three of my favorite movies...

Oy.

Another day, another set of memes.

5 things
INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1. Wylie’s Words
2. Tennessee Text Wrestling
3. Sophisticated Writer
4. The Urban Recluse
5. Dictionopolis in Digitopolis

Next, select five people to tag.

Well frankly, the last time I tagged anyone all I got was kvetching from people about how they couldn't think of eight interesting things about themselves. Or not even eight people read their blogs. Who needs the tsuris?

If you're reading this, and you think it might be nice to try, consider yourself tagged. Otherwise, on with the questions!

What were you doing ten years ago?

I had just moved here. It's been 10 years. I didn't want to think about that. I hated this miserable godforsaken stinking city then and I still do.

What were you doing one year ago?

Kind of being stalked by a desperate housewife who'd gone briefly crazy.

Deciding that I'm only slightly less disgusted with Democrats than with Republicans.

Figuring out how to post embedded video clips to this blog.

Wishing Bush, Rumsfeld and Rove would be charged as murderers.

Mocking the Bush daughters.

Briefly renouncing Anne Hathaway because she said she had to do a movie with overrated, talentless hack Tim Burton before she died.



It didn't take, for obvious reasons.



Five snacks you enjoy.

1. Chocolate covered marshmallows
2. Doritos
3. Ellen Barkin in 1987...sorry, I was miles away. On with the list!

4. Brach's fruit snacks
5. Chocolate chip cookies (microwaved)

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics.

Hm. These are best guesses, since like most nonprofessionals, I mainly sing songs when I have the recording going with me to prompt me if I forget. But...

1. Help Me (Oingo Boingo)
2. Flex (Figures On A Beach)
3. Automatic (Zoot Woman)
4. Fools in Love (Joe Jackson)
5. Everytime You Go Away (Paul Young, written by Daryl Hall)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.

1. Buy every single piece of top Consumer Reports-rated audio and visual equipment I could get my hands on.
2. "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, the movie, scene one, take one...action!"
3. Endow a library somewhere like East Palo Alto.
4. Hire a personal trainer to help me get fit.
5. Buy a house with a pool.

Five bad habits.

1. Doing memes.
2. Letting my expectations get too high and then, inevitably, being let down.
3. Reacting to problems by becoming paralyzed instead of working through them or, god forbid, asking for help.
4. I might say, being single-minded about my art, but the truth is, I don't really think that's a bad habit. What's bad is what happens to the rest of my life while all that's going on.
5. Just in general, not taking very good care of myself.

Five things you like doing.

1. Having that dream about finding the girl who has the face of Madonna (from 85 to 91)...
... the mind of Amy Gardner, and the body of

Lisa Edelstein.

It's a bitch when I wake up, though.

2. Finding characters in my head and then trying to get them down on paper as best I can.
3. Seeing those characters brought to life...when it's done by professionals and not losers.
4. Watching the new Doctor Who
5. Reading interviews with Terry Gilliam/watching his movies.

Five things you would never wear again.

1. A black, sparkly disco shirt (don't ask)
2. Way-too-short-shorts that I once wore to Jr. High gym
3. A red shirt with a yellow scarf. Or maybe it was the other way around, I don't remember. The point is, I looked like a hamburger.
4. Fishnet stockings (no, really, don't ask)
5. A Kajagoogoo t-shirt. Okay, so I never have worn such a t-shirt, but I'm sure I never will again.

I'm ignoring the rules to this next one as I see fit, but if you wanna see 'em, they're here.

(The...Goals meme)

1) In a new blog post, list and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life.

1. I gotta see one of my plays/screenplays acted by a full cast of professional actors. I'd even settle for hearing the book version of MGB read by a professional actress.

2. I need to tell my story, because only the truth or something like it expressed through art will set me free, and you never know, it might help somebody else. He said cryptically.

3. I need a life as charmed as those I try to create for my favorite characters.

4. I need Ginger to think that something I wrote is great. He said even more cryptically.

5. I need to get drunk enough to dance around to my favorite kind of music without caring who's watching.

Things that make even me say......what am I, a girl?

Sweet and submissive or Hard and Dominant?

You are a Mutual Person
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At first, I was going to say "All right!" But...what the hell?

Becca found this online tool that scans your blog and assigns it a rating, a la the film ratings board. No Smoking in the Skull Cave is rated "G." As Becca said in the entry, "guess the ratings board didn't see all the pictures of naked girls I've posted in the past."

Dictionopolis in Digitopolis is rated "R." Why? Four uses of the word "gay," two uses of the word "shit" and one of the word "lesbian."

!

First of all, I post pictures of naked girls too...just not as many as Becca. She's really got an eye. But second, she got away with a "G" for "1 use of the word "kill" and 1 use of the word "dyke." Dig it, I used the word gay, which in context simply means homosexual. I used the word shit, which isn't even on the list of words you can't say on television anymore. And I used the word lesbian, which, again, is merely descriptive.

Becca used a word that describes the ultimate crime of depriving someone of their life, and a slang term that can be considered disparaging and offensive. Though she certainly didn't mean it that way.

But I get an "R" and she gets a "G?" "Dyke" is okay, but "gay" and "lesbian" are not?

You know what's great about this? This is exactly how the MPAA works. They assign ratings with an apparent lack of rhyme or reason, with no consistency and often to fit a political agenda. And famously, violence-"kill"-is acceptable, while sexuality, especially female sexuality and homosexuality, is not.

It's not often you find an online tool that works as such perfect satire.

One more reason to hope scientists are wrong about time travel being impossible

Chance of getting to know Vivien Leigh in 1946.

big head...

Here's the Dinosaur Scene I mentioned from Meet The Robinsons. It's a little less than 20 seconds.



(Excerpted from the trailer)

Random Flickr-blogging 5788

Sometimes, what she saw as the lack of any real grace in her life was really enough to get Lilly down.

Fortunately, sometimes the smallest thing could make her feel better again.

Sources: 1, 2

Random Flickr-blogging 5788: This one's for my nephew edition

I took my nephew to see Disney's Meet The Robinsons Sunday evening. It's a good film, for an adult probably not as good as Flushed Away or Ice Age, but it looks great and the story has some genuine insight. In fact I may have enjoyed it more than he did.

But the reason I'm telling you all this is because some supporting characters in this movie are robotic bowler hats that can control minds. Then I get home after taking my nephew back to his parents' house, and see that my RFB ""the Number is" email has arrived.

And when I go to search under that number, this is one of the first pictures I find:



Scary!

Also in the picture, the mysterious would-be villain brings a T-Rex from the past to attack our hero, trapped in a corner. But is stymied because, as the Dino tells him through subtitled growls,

“I have a big head and little arms… I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through.”

So a little further down from the scary hats picture, I find this:

Man...

Credits: 1, 2.

And somewhere, Anne Beatts & Rosie Shuster are screaming

Ok. So there's this TV special, hosted by Kelly Ripa, called "The 50 Funniest Women Alive." It's on Oxygen. No play on words intended, but maybe there should be, as I'll get to in a moment.

It's like those shows a lot of the cable networks do, where people comment on some list or another that has been put together. You know the drill. Now, I didn't watch much of the show-in retrospect, perhaps because I didn't want to be kvetching about the omissions.

However, I did happen to catch their pick for 37th: Tina Fey. Now, despite how I may feel, it's one thing for her to be on such a list. It's quite another for one of the anonymous talking heads on the special to identify her, as indeed one did, as "the first woman writer for 'Saturday Night Live."

!

No, she was not the first woman writer for "Saturday Night Live." She was the first woman head writer for "Saturday Night Live." A reasonable accomplishment, but not what they said at all.

"Saturday Night Live" has had women writers from the very beginning, the two originals were Ms. Beatts and Ms. Shuster. Follow those links to read their bios, including lists of the "SNL" characters they created, separately and in collaboration with each other or others.

They were influential parts of the writing staff, and by most accounts they didn't always have an easy time of it. They deserve better than to have that erased by some ignorant non-entity on television who didn't know what he was talking about before he opened his mouth.

Now, if I were paranoid, I'd say this is all part of what I see as the inexplicable overhyping of Tina Fey. Yet I don't blame her for this--she certainly knows who Beatts & Shuster are, she's even one of the people quoted on that Beatts bio page.

But...

Oxygen is the channel with a mission statement that reads-

Attempting to create a new kind of relationship between women and the media based on honesty, humor, and heart.

-it really does, look 'em up on Yahoo!

By letting someone be dishonest, or at least stupid, about women who should be (and I'd like to think, are) inspirations to young women who want to do funny work...they really show themselves to be kind of heartless.