Beth's Contradictory Brain

Wall E

We went to see it tonight and I really, really enjoyed it. I have no idea how Pixar makes you forget completely that you're watching animation. Not only did I forget the robot wasn't a real robot, I forgot he was even animated. Sigh. It's a lovely movie.

Oh yeah. And when you go see it, the Pixar short film before it is fantastic. And if you want to know how Nerdstar feels about food - think of her when you watch the bunny.

And since no one writes a better review than Lileks - just go read his.

Heh!

Cartoon

Another Weekend

Friday evening for dinner we met up with this couple we first met down in Austin who moved here before we did. The wife is Korean and the husband a white dude. Their little boy is such a cutie.

Later things got rocky, Nerdstar and I had one of our rare but unnerving "how do we make this relationship work or not work" conversations. I don't write much about our relationship, partly because I'm not at all sure how to make some of it make any sense. It mostly works for us, we've mostly had the same problems all 9 years, which I hear is normal. We tend to have troubles with the same things all couples have trouble with - communication and money. But we have more fun that not. If only she loved me as much as she loves food.... (one of these days I'll write out a list of all the times she exhibits a deep and profound love of food that I've never seen her display over me).

That made work Saturday rather rough. I was in no mood to be nice to sick dumbasses.

Then we did some lunch and shopping.

Last night we met up with a new member of her reserve unit that recently moved to the DC area and his wife and little boy. The wife is Chinese and is going to be in Beijing as a translator at the Olympics, how cool is that? It's always tricky when I'm with her around her army peeps, but we don't worry about it too much. A few weeks ago we even went out on a boat with her commander's commander. That woman knew exactly how to do "don't ask/don't tell." Most people mess up the don't ask part because they're unaware that even asking if you're married, or have kids, or who you live with can be tricky questions for gay people and could in some way "out" them.

Today was more shopping. It turned into an expensive weekend, but it's all stuff we need.

We've also been watching "I Love the New Millenium" on VH1 - simple pleasures.

No real plans for the 4th. It sounds like it would be cool to be down on the National Mall for all the events and fireworks, but it's really a long, hot day down there, so I'm not sure we'd be up to it. We thought about going out of town, but it looks very likely Nerdstar's going to have to go to Hawaii again next month for her annual training with her army unit. Ugh. More on that later.

Hope your weekend was a good one!!

Recent Reads

I think I heard about Stephen Pressfield on Instapundit. I picked up two of his books at the library a few weeks ago - Killing Romel and The Afghan Campaign. They're historical fiction. Killing Romel was about the British desert special forces who were tasked with (obviously) killing Romel. I really enjoyed the book. He didn't glorify the military or make it seem overly glorious - quite the opposite. Then there was the aspect of writing about trying to do anything in the desert. As much as I love to travel, I've never had a real desire to see the great deserts of the world. I asked Nerdstar if she got a sense of the desert in her travels to and in Iraq, but she said not really. Although she did become at least a little familiar with sand everywhere.

While reading The Afghan Campaign, which is about Alexander's conquest of Afghanistan, I also read The Places in Between that Nerdstar had picked up on one of her travels. The Places In Between is Scotsman Rory Stewarts tale of walking through Afghanistan in the winter of 2002/2003. It was really cool reading about the same country thousands of years apart. Mostly, it hasn't changed much. And they both had sad endings.

All three books are really good reads. Learning about different places/times by reading is second only to actual travel, and sometimes it's even better.

Cool

I mentioned really enjoying John Scalzi's sci-fi trilogy a few weeks ago. His blog has really become one I enjoy reading. He's had several posts that are pro gay marriage, and now he wrote one about why he's not homophobic - the comments are really good, too.

A Question

Do any of you fellow bloggers have friends in "real life" that know about your blog but don't read it? How do you feel about that?

I find it more frustrating than Nerdstar does (even taking into consideration she doesn't blog nearly as much as I do). I guess one of the things I find frustrating is getting together with friends and having to tell them stuff I've blogged about since the last time I saw them, things about work or trips or whatever. I don't mind talking about those things, but it seems like wasted conversation time.

Hmmm... I'm having a hard time explaining and not sounding weird. I've written and deleted two or three sentences.

Anyway.

I can't imagine knowing someone I know has a blog and NOT reading it. I'm nosy like that. Although, I don't google everyone I meet.

What do you think?

Hi

How are you? How's the weather? What's new?

Compensating

In a lot of my dreams I'm spending time with groups of people (these are not people I recognize from real life 99% of the time) that are a mix of strangers and friends, kinda just hanging out. These are a new type of dream for me.

(I hate describing dreams because it's so damn impossible to make the words describe anything like what I saw while asleep.)

It dawned on me recently that I must be compensating for an almost total lack of hanging out with people in real life.

Weird yet kinda cool.

Art

I decided it would be fun if we acted like urban hipsters for an evening. We went over to DC to check out Artomatic - 10 floors of a 12 story building turned over to 1000 artists.

It was cool. I think our favorite exhibit was one where a guy stood at a certain intersection in DC over 24 hours and took peoples pics. I thought about how it would be even more cool to see the same thing done in several different cities and then have all the pics exhibited by city. It'd be cool to see the different looks of the people in different cities.

There was also the Peeps dioramas exhibit - way fun!!

I was hoping to actually buy some more art for our place, alas it was not to be. There was one painting there we both thought was neat, but it was already sold. But out of thousands of pieces of art - there weren't any I really wanted to live with.

I realized I like photography more than paintings to look at. But my feeling is why would I want to live with someone else's photos when I can take my own.

Other art I don't want to live with includes dark and angry art, photos/portraits of people I don't know, and certainly not political art. There seemed to be a lot of those types. I guess it's cool to see women painting naked women instead of men painting naked women, but there's still no one painting naked men.

One cool aspect of this particular art show as all the ethnic diversity of the artists and art.

Anyway - what art have you seen lately and what kind do you like to live with??

Emtpy Again

We had a really good time having The Kid and my brother here. Although it was weird having gross boys in the house.

Tuesday we took them out to the Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport (as opposed to the one in DC). We spent hours looking at all kinds of airplanes, it was cool.

That night he saw our racketball rackets and wanted to go play - so we took him over to the courts and played for a while. It was funny.

Wednesday Nerdstar had to work, so my brother and I took The Kid to the Natural History Museum so he could see all the dinosaurs and stuff. He loved it. It was more fun for him because there were more hands on things - which is important for kids who can't read all the info yet. That night was more racketball.

Thursday we decided to sleep in and just went to see Kung Fu Panda.

Here's a funny video of The Kid after seeing the movie.

Gas Prices

I know we're all frustrated as hell at $4+ gas prices. But I was thinking that it's taken a very, very long time to get to that price - my reasoning is we've been driving cars for over a hundred years. So I was curious about how long it took to go from $1 to $2 gas then from $2 to $3 and now $3 to $4. Because to me it's not so much that gas is now $4 it's how fast the price is rising and the fear that that pace isn't going to slow down. (For the record - I do believe that either prices are going to go back down soon - end of the year or so - or that we'll find an alternative to oil in that same timeframe.)

Here's a chart I found for gas prices from 1970 to now adjusted to today's prices. We were at $2.50 in 1974 then 3.37 in 1981. Then we spent from around '86 to '06 under $2.50.

In historical perspective I'm not sure $4 is outrageous. But again, it's the right end of that chart that's scary.

This chart shows pretty much the same thing.

Invaded!

We're being invaded by boys tonight!! My brother and The Kid are flying in from Dallas until Thursday. I'm pretty excited. It's The Kid's first flight. They called from the airport a little delayed and The Kid is all thrilled!

We're going to take him to the Air and Space Museum tomorrow so he can see all these airplanes up close. Then Wed. we'll take him to the Natural History Museum and watch his jaw hit the floor when he sees the dinosaur skeletons. I can't wait. I'll try to get some pics and video.

Because It's Sunday

The A-Z of Me

Stolen from Sassy Femme.

A is for your age:
40

B is for your burger of choice:
Plain - preferrably with toasted buns - from Whataburger when in Texas.

C is for the car that you drive:
Toyota Corola

D is for dog's name:
Ramen

E is for an essential item you use each day:
My sofa - although we need a new one.

F is for your favorite television show:
30 Rock

G is for favorite game:
poker

H is for hometown:
raised in Grand Prairie, TX, but Austin is where my heart still is.

I is for instruments played:
trombone

J is for favorite juice:
grape.

K is for what you'd like to kick:
the media in the head

L is for last restaurant you dined at:
we eat out so much I can't remember the last place. not too many memorable places around here..

M is for your favorite muppet:
animal

N is for number of piercings you have:
two now - my ears, had my eyebrow pierced a few years back.

O is for overnight hospital stays:
never.

P is for people you were with today:
probably just Nerdstar.

Q is for what you do in quiet times:
think.

R is for regrets:
too many to list

S is for status:
i got no status in this world.

T is for time you woke up today:
which time? 7 then 9.

U is for what you consider unique:
everyone

V is for favorite vegetable:
I don't eat vegetables.

W is for your worst habit:
cussing

X is for x-rays you have had:
one when i broke my arm as a kid.

Y is for yummy food you ate today:
nothing yet, hoping for a good dinner.

Z is for zodiac sign:
aries.

I Really Like These Parts

J.K. Rowling
Harvard University Commencement Address

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Frustrating

Monday I came home from work really feeling like I need a different job (again). No new problems, just more of the fact that nothing's going to get any better. So I was kinda in a grumpy mood Tuesday when a lady with a placement agency called about a job. It's for a big lap company and I haven't been thrilled by the idea of working for them, I told her I'd think about it, but wasn't too sure. Then I kicked myself in the butt and said dumbass, you want a new job and someone called about a new job - go check it out. I called her back and scheduled an interview for today.

Then yesterday at work they implemented yet another software program for us to use that just adds to our registration process of patients. Now, in addition to all the crap we already do, we have these little scanners at our desk and we have to scan in their insurance, prescription, and consent forms. Now, honestly that means it takes about another 15 seconds for me. The problem is that it also means it takes about minute or two for all the already slow assed co-workers I have - which also means more work for me. Someone has to keep the patients moving while they have their heads up their butts. Ugh.

So today I drive an hour to the interview location only to find that the power is out in that building and there's NO ONE THERE. Um, yeah, I didn't receive a phone call saying no one would be there!! That really pissed me off. Ok, so it took an hour to get there - but traffic coming home looked like complete hell. It was ten miles moving about ten miles an hour. That meant I would have spent about four hours for something that didn't happen. The only good part was the Garmin actually found me an alternate route home that was pretty and took a lot less time.

I still haven't heard from the lady. So, when I do hear from her I'll say I'm more than happy to fax her whatever she needs - but I'm not making that drive again. (The job itself is actually much closer to home than my current one.) All she had to do was call and reschedule, but she didn't. (As long as she had a cell phone and internet access at home she had my info.)

Poor Nerdstar is having just about as much fun with her job and the military.

Evil Airways

No, this isn't a rant about the state of air travel these days...

I try to explain to friends of ours that, in spite of her adorableness and innocent looks, Nerdstar is the evil one. I'm rarely believed. It took my parents years to see it. This conversation we had yesterday backs me up.

We were out for lunch and talking about traveling when Nerdstar brought up movies on airplanes and that she'd been stuck watching Enchanted twice - oh the horror. Then she said they never show Snakes On A Plane, or Lost, or anything like that. Then we thought several air disaster movies they could be showing on flights, or even just the Airplane series. Then she said she could just make a loop of planes crashing in midair or on runways. I told her she could start her own airline and show all of the movies she wanted - and she could name it Evil Airways.

Poor Dog

It's really comical. Every night when we all go to bed - the dog on his bed at the foot of ours, and the two cats mostly at the foot of the bed - and then Nerdstar and I are talking, poor Ramen dog always sighs. It's as if he's so tired from his day of napping like the cats and we're just torturing him with our incessant talking.