By Kevin Young
I don't believe in sex
after marriage.
My wife does, just
not with me.
I plead the Fifth
of whiskey. I am close
to perfecting a theory
of forgettability.
Grief a dog
that keeps dogging me—
Good Grief,
I say. It's me
he's teaching to beg—
my next anniversary
is newspaper, yesterday's—
lining my cage—
Tomorrow the day
I hope to learn to stay.
--------
I have a horrible head cold that's making my sinuses pound. The only thing I accomplished today was writing a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Legacy". And I played around on the new animal site that my friend Carol edits for People Magazine, People Pets (but don't go rushing over there to join yet because it's still in beta, and you might have to have your e-mail already in their database to be allowed to sign up right now). I hope my cats appreciate my efforts to make them rich and famous.
These are the young alpacas that were outside the Alpaca International store in Annapolis yesterday evening for the Midnight Madness shopping event.
The store carries woolens made from alpaca fiber -- sweaters, capes, hats, mittens, scarves, coats...
...as well as these adorable toy alpacas.
It was a chilly evening in Annapolis, but the alpacas didn't seem to mind.
We first realized that they were there when we saw the alpaca bus.
The shepherd from Pax River Alpacas let the people from the store pose with the animals.
And inside the store they were serving cider and cheese.
The Friday Five: Money, Money, Money
1. Do you like the look of your country's currency (bills and coins)? I like the more colorful new bills -- I prefer the bills in countries that use more color. I've always liked the coins.
2. Regardless of their actual value, do you like bills or coins better? Bills are a lot easier to carry around and to recycle.
3. What is your favorite foreign currency? And why? British, since I generally only carry it when I'm in the U.K.
4. Do you collect coins or bills? Elaborate. I have saved one of each coin from every country I've ever visited and a few (Israel, China) that I haven't visited.
5. Do you think human society could make do completely without money? Explain. We'd have to have some form of credits -- gold-pressed latinum, if you prefer, but I'm not carrying around apples to trade for books.
Fannish 5: Name five books that should never have been made into movies.
1. The Great Gatsby. The beauty of the book is in its language; it just doesn't translate to screen dialogue.
2. Misery. The book is misogynistic enough; it didn't need to become an onscreen woman-bashing fest.
3. The Scarlet Letter. I like Demi Moore and Gary Oldman but that film is unwatchable.
4. The Iliad. Look, I love Troy -- I could watch it just for the cast -- but as a retelling of Homer, it could not be sillier.
5. Battlefield: Earth. No one could have made a decent movie out of that source material.
I watched both SGA and Sanctuary, neither of which appealed to me much, though the fact that my head is pounding and my Yahoo Messenger isn't working no doubt contributed to my uncharitable mood. I know there are some people who like to scream misogyny whenever anyone confesses to hating Jennifer Keller, so let me get this out before the cut: I despise Jennifer Keller. I don't think Jewel Staite is much of an actress -- I didn't much like her on Firefly either -- but it's the writing of the character that's really intolerable. Last time, she made no attempt to contribute any ideas to a crisis that could have gotten her and everyone else killed, and then it wasn't enough that Rodney was a genius and totally devoted to her -- he had to do the he-man rescue to get the girl. This time, she was back to "I feel like I'm in over my head." Oh, I feel like such a bimbo next to youuuuuuu Rodney! And then she whines about his big ego -- gee, can't imagine where he might get the idea that he's much, much smarter and better at everything than she is.
It's a good thing there were interesting Wraith storylines going on based on Jennifer's miscalculations, or I'd have turned off the show. As for Sanctuary, I still feel like the actors are much better than the material; Amanda Tapping is extremely entertaining to watch as crazy Helen Magnus and Robin Dunne does a good job playing off her, but the storyline is painfully thin and seems cobbled from The X-Files, The Abyss and a bunch of sub disaster movies.
O.J., have a lovely time in your new home. Now, does anyone think I could get away with asking the federal government for a $15,000 bailout to rebuild my deck, which failed inspection so cannot simply be repaired? It's not even our fault, as the deck was put in by the people who lived in the house before us, and the safety standards have changed. I feel this is certainly someone's fault other than our own, so we should be able to ask the government to help us out here, since I have no idea how we're going to pay for the deck, a Bar Mitzvah and Adam's braces all in one year -- where do we get in line for the federal handouts?
No comments:
Post a Comment