I sympathize with Lachelle about when she is asked "where are you from?". She said she has a hard time answering that question. Me too.

I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. We moved to Puerto Rico when I was three, so I don't consider myself "from" Missouri. We lived in three separate places in Puerto Rico - the one I remember best was Beach Tower, an apartment building on the Isla Verde beach strip (high tourist area). It was quite literally on the beach; I recall during some really nasty tropical storms an occasional ambitious wave would touch the ground floor. As fond as I am of the Caribbean and as much as I miss it, I am not "from" Puerto Rico.

We moved to Metro Atlanta when I was thirteen. We lived in Stone Mountain while I was in High School; when I went to College in Statesboro, Georgia, my mother moved to Norcross. When I got out of college (after an abortive attempt to attend graduate school at LSU), I moved in with my mother and didn't leave until the mid-90's when she re-married. I bopped around a few different apartment buildings until I met my husband and we moved in together in Decatur, Alabama. Now we live in Hartselle.

So the best guess would be "the South". But I'm not a southerner. *Sigh*. It is a tricky question. I usually answer "I lived most of my life in Atlanta". If they want more detail, I add the bit about Missouri and Puerto Rico.

Like most people, I start my day with the internet. Unlike an old-fashioned newspaper, the internet allows you to pick and choose what you look at. Not that you can't skip the sports section in a newspaper, but I digress.

First I read the comics section: I am addicted to Sluggy Freelance, General Protection Fault, Bruno the Bandit, and Get Fuzzy.

Then I poke around in various blogs - my friends' (and their friends') stuff; then of course Lileks. I'm also fond of Infinite Monkeys. I do read some news - mainly whatever Yahoo has on its main page.

I also visit some message boards - predominantly movie-oriented. I like the people on Jabootu's Mad Movie Dimension. I also read Chud's messageboards, but there's a lot of noise on them. Still, it's a great site (Atlanta based!) for movie news.

Lastly, I read email. I have a Yahoo account where all my mail list mail goes to. I can usually blah blah through most of the posts but the occasional gold nugget shows up (Damian Lewis is going to be the lead in a love story! Yay!! It's a BBC TV production! Boo!!).

Then I visit this site and stare wistfully at the videocam picture of the Charlotte Amalie Harbor. I'll then go visit their USVI travel forum searching for some vicarious pleasure by reading someone's trip report. More often than not the posts consist of people asking the same things (do I have to rent a 4-wheel drive vehicle or can I walk everywhere on St. John? It's only 5 miles wide!) despite a FAQ and a search engine.

Then I try to think of something halfway interesting to write and I stick it here ---->X.

Boo! My allergies are back with a vengeance. My nose itches so bad it's bleeding. Icky. I will probably resume using Nasonex. And as Nancy pointed out to me, not being able to smell might help me with dieting.

After managing to maintain 130 for a long while, I have ballooned up to 143 this month. That's it, I can't take any more. Especially since my clothes are uncomfortable. Let the dieting commence (again)!

I had an uninteresting weekend. I did one AFF jump Saturday; it took a while for the clouds to clear but one of the Tennessee kids from last weekend showed up and did his level 2. He did a great job; hope he comes and jumps again.

Sunday morning was a complete wash, so we watched the South Park movie. Love the show; love the movie. Parker and Stone (who won my undying love when they showed up at the Oscars wearing dresses one year) skewer just about every group there is; but the movie seemed to kick Canada ass the hardest. Well, actually, it seems to strike the hardest at people who want to blame their problems on everything but themselves, but Canada receives a sound whoopin for some reason. And deservedly so! In the movie the Prime Minister insists they apologized for Bryan Adams, but I don't recall hearing that apology.

Then I whooped ass in Civ III. I was tricked into getting into wars with Spain and Greece (by India), but I let them so I could land-grab. So now it's just me (Persia), the Vikings, and India. And Ghandi is looking kind of nervous. Or maybe just greedy.

But I actually got to see a movie in a theater!Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I enjoyed it. I think it's the best of the 3 HP movies easily. It's also the first one I've seen since reading all the books, so I may be prejudiced. I wish that the movie would have explained some things; like why Harry's dad and 2 of his friends were Animagi (while one was a werewolf). Probably cut for time constraints - the damn thing is 2 hours and 21 minutes long as it is! Maybe it will be put in the DVD. Yes, the kids aren't going to win oscars, but I associate them pretty strongly with their roles now so I hope they continue. And yes, that hippogriff was an amazing piece of CGI (as was the whomping willow). Now I want to see the first 2 movies again.

Hooray! My nose is working better today. That onion bagel tasted/smelled terrific; as did my Rooibos tea. I have this honking big bottle of moisturizing lotion next to my computer at work; it smells like coconut and I can actually tell.

The loss of smell is wierd - the only thing I can relate it to is like if you have a loud ringing in your ears blocking out other noises or if you have been out in the sun for too long and you come indoors and can only see things in your peripheral vision for a few moments.

A huge chunk of my after-work life has been taken up by Civilization III:Conquests, an add-on to Civ III which I bought Tuesday. I notice the developers added some things from Civ II, like bananas. Also the mountain chains might have volcanoes which might erupt during gameplay spreading pollution and killing workers/military units or city population. Also I get to build trebuchets, now. How nifty. Haven't had a chance to use one in battle yet but the Spanish are annoyed with me and are amassing troops near one of my cities. Jerks. We'll see how they like my crusaders marching on Madrid!

Pathetic. I bet if I added up all the hours I have played any of the Sid Meier games (Civs I,II,III; Alpha Centauri, Master of Magic and Colonization), I bet at least one year of my life total has been wasted. But they're so damn fun!!

Link o' the day: Cold Fusion Video, another b-movie site. The owner/operator is a devout Mormon. The only way I found out about that was by reading his blog. He also hosts Zombie Mart.

Nancy linked to an interesting site: Women for Women International. I want to read more about them before I fork over any dough, but they seem to be a good cause. Ordinary people get their lives ripped apart in war zones; women have that extra added bonus of getting raped. Not that you have to be in a war zone to be raped, but I digress. I am very fortunate to be an American.

For some reason my brain is taking a nostalgic trip and it involves the first guy I ever fell in love with (who returned some of those emotions - to what extent I couldn't tell you).

Oh, to be young and psychotic again. Maybe not. I don't know if he knew it, but I worshipped the ground he walked on. I dated him in college. His mom didn't like me though (BITCH!) (man, can I hold a grudge, or what?) so there was little chance of a happily ever after scenario. Plus the fact that I found out he cheated on me one summer so I did the normal, 21 year old thing: I slept with a friend of his. And I'm not going to talk about how that all turned out. Let's just say I pretty much got exactly what I deserved.

Holy cabbage soup, I was an idiot. I miss being that passionate, but then again I don't miss being led around by the wrong body parts. Everyone else I dated pretty much falls into the "what was I thinking?" category, except for this nice Jewish guy. I gave him up because I was going back to college, where the aboveforementioned light-of-my-life-who-will-soon-crush-my-heart was waiting.

After a really slimy experience with a yahoo from New York, I quit dating for a long time. Then I met my true light-of-my-life (hi, Jon!). Jon is honest (too much so), cute, and makes me laugh. What the heck else could you want in a partner?

10 random things, mostly movie-related:

Colin Farrell, who is good looking but not on my list, is complaining becase a full-frontal scene he did in some movie is being cut. I would like to add my voice of protest against slicing any wienies. Unless it's Harvey Keitel again. Seen enough of you, thanks.

Micturating is a $2.50 way of saying "urinating". The things I learn from James Lileks!

Claritin and ephedrine probably shouldn't be mixed.

The sequel to Dungeons & Dragons, a godawful movie, is purported to have Paris Hilton. I will watch, maybe even buy a DVD of this sequel, if someone assembles a ballistae behind her and shoots her with it.

Game # 178 of the XP version of FreeCell is a major ass-kicker. I finally solved it, though.

The movie Powers that Be are not going to show the Batman Begins teaser in front of Spiderman II. Instead, it will be shown in front of Catwoman, which is supposed to stink like a wet litterbox in a hot garage. What trailer will we see in front of Spiderman II? Catwoman, of course.

Gary Oldman is doing the voice of Darth Obvious. Or something like that. Bad guy for the third movie. He will always be Sid to me.

I still can't smell anything. My doctor's appointment is next Wednesday.

I'm still bored. Can't you tell?

Richard "Master Thespian" Burton ran like a girl. Boy I'm in a snippy mood.

This week is going to be far more boring than usual, I can tell.

Jon and I went to the Sushi Boat yesterday. We were sorry to see they weren't busy at lunch - they have good sushi plus you don't have to wait 45 minutes to eat. Just sit down and start grabbing dishes. They have really good spicy tuna rolls. I hope their business picks up soon.

I was really happy to learn about the private enterprise mission to outer space. The only way we're ever going to get off this planet is if we find a profitable reason to do so. I am fascintated by NASA but most of our space missions have pretty much been a waste of tax dollars.

We got TiVo wired to our wireless net at home.

Did I mention that I was bored?

Bored.

Word o' the day:

risible
SYLLABICATION: ris·i·ble
ADJECTIVE: 1. Relating to laughter or used in eliciting laughter.
2. Eliciting laughter; ludicrous.
3. Capable of laughing or inclined to laugh.
ETYMOLOGY: Late Latin rsibilis, from Latin rsus, past participle of rdre, to laugh.

This weekend was the fourth weekend in a row where I had to teach a ground school. I hate talking that much! Anyways, I had four students, all young guys. One was a young military man - a lot of fun to look at. One was a german fella. He was a very nice guy and had a good grasp of english; he resembled the actor (Karl-Otto Alberty) who played all those Nazis in the 60's and 70's war movies which was slightly disconcerting. The other two were friends. They looked like typical tennessee young adults but one of them looked amazingly like Orlando Bloom. Bet he doesn't have much trouble getting chicks.

Speaking of uncanny resemblences, Steve came over too me at some point Saturday afternoon, pointed at a woman (tandem student), and said, "Look! It's Denise Richards!" and I immediately looked at her hooters(!). Embarrasing. Yeah, they were big. I didn't realize it was so cold out, either. She did resemble the actress in question in the face, too.

So I had four ground school students and ended up doing 5 AFF jumps all total. On top of that I did a bunch of parachute packing and ended up clearing about $400. Not bad for a weekend's work.

I am somewhat distressed because I have lost almost all of my sense of smell. I was taking Nasonex, a prescription for chronic rhinitis (constant stuffy nose) which I think is the culprit so I quit using it. The trouble is, my allergies come back with a vengeance after the medication completely wears off. Right now my ability to smell comes and goes randomly. I had a good day Sunday, although I'm not sure I should refer to it as "good". I caught a good whiff of someone's particularly nasty flatulence as well as someone's well-defined foot odor. When I got home and decided to deliberately cook something that would require me to saute onions and garlic in olive oil, my sense of smell had deserted me again. Damn. As anyone who has ever had a cold will know, a large component of the ability to taste is the ability to smell. Unless I put in enough cayenne pepper to shrivel an elephant I can't taste anything. I will be visiting my allergy doc soon for some tests. In the meantime I will stock up on Claratin.

I'm home from work today. Taking a vacation day to bask in my new promotion. Anyway, who says cats don't do anything? Here's some photographic proof:



Pookie guarding the UPS deliveries.

Big fat kitty guarding the bamboo steamer. 

I thought the Dorcus collection was a scream. I am so glad I didn't read Lilek's latest at work. I quite literally laughed myself into an athsma attack last night.

Hey, I got a raise! And a promotion!

I'm now a Senior software analyst. Oh, goodie, more responsibility. Actually I don't mind. Sometimes I'm bored out of my skull.

So anyways: my husband and I finally remembered that TiVo is updated by telephone. We got rid of our land line. So now we're going to replace our networking hub with a wireless broadband router and connect the TiVo up to that. Transport that last sentence to 1977 and see how long it would have taken you to explain it to a denizen of that era. We are living in a science fiction future, except without all the kewl space travel. That's a shame; really.

I had a horrible, vivid nightmare last night featuring flesh-eating zombies. This nightmare had a supporting cast of character actors I recognized, and a soundtrack. I remember the music was more disgusting than the zombies. I remember a really chewed-up corpse tried to attack me while I was sitting on the john so I ripped its arm off and beat it over the head while I was screaming for help.

If anybody out there does dream interpretations let me tell you now: I do NOT want to know what that dream meant.

Oh joy! *Poing* *poing* *poing*

I was at Wal-Mart last night after work and was perusing their $10 DVDs. I found Rustler's Raphsody, my all-time favorite movie that nobody saw.

When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, one of the english-language TV stations would show old Roy Rogers movies. I must have seen them all dozens of times. Now old Roy couldn't act his way out of a wet paper sack, but he was handsome, honest, decent, and could shoot the gun out of a man's hand at 50 paces. And boy did he have a nifty wardrobe!

I'm telling you that to explain to you why I have such unconditional love for this movie. It is a gentle satire of the old Gene Autry/Roy Rogers movies. And I do mean gentle. After so many Airplane!s, American Pies, and Scary Movies, it's a shock to see something not go for the penis/fart/masturbation jokes. Well, there is some cursing. Damn, damn, hell, damn, tee-tee, doo-doo,...

It features Rex O'Herlihan (Tom Berenger), the singing cowboy. He travels from town to town on his horse Wildfire righting wrongs and bringing justice to the frontier. He has developed almost a zen-like attitude about what he's going to encounter when he gets to a new town; he knows without being told about the pretty but somehow asexual schoolmarm that just moved in, as well as the railroad that's being built and how the cattle baron (Andy Griffith!) is oppressing the peaceful sheepherders. He knows the town drunk ('that guy' G.W. Bailey) is going to become his sidekick before even meeting him.

This movie isn't for everyone but I adore it. And like I've said before, it's kind of mind-blowing to see Tom Berenger play such a good good-guy. Not only did he play Sargeant Barnes in Platoon, but he played a homosexual rapist/murderer in Looking for Mister Goodbar (which sucks, I say. Sucks!). Where did your career go, Tom? BTW he was in the hilariously bad Cutaway, which was a movie about skydiving drug smugglers. Berenger did learn how to skydive for the movie. The people who made this piece of poop made the mistake of trying to please both skydivers and the unknowing public and ended up pissing off the former and boring the latter.

Anyhow, check out Nancy's recent amusing comments about the Micheal Stipe stalker she met in Athens once. Obsessions are interesting things, but it's kind of scary to see/meet someone who is full in the grip of one. I can see how it could get remarkably boring having to listen to these one-note defective creatures drone on and on about their undying love. Yeah, I've done my own mental stalking, but never actually sought out the object of my desire. Going to see Ralph Fiennes play Hamlet in London does *not* count! It was my sister's idea, and it's not like we hung around back stage to get a glimpse or anything!

Though if I could get a way-back machine, I'd go back to talk with that red-headed Laertes....

Um! Anyway, here's my link of the week:Boyfriend of the Week. This woman's tastes are all over the map, which is of course, just fine in my book. Not only was Damian Lewis one of her boyfriends, she has an entry for just about all of my listees. Plus, she has two on Owen Wilson, which someone out there might be interested in reading.

If you wondered about accelerated freefall, here is an AFF jump. I'm on the right and J.K. is on the left. He is giving our student a "legs out" signal. My boobs aren't really that square, by the way. I wear a weight vest when I'm jumping with the big guys. 

Here I'm accepting my Gold Badge from J.K. That's my Girl Scout badge for 12 hours of freefall. I am going to get my Gold Wings soon (1000 jumps).  

I stole this from someone who had visited St. John. This is pretty much what you see to your right as you come into Cruz Bay. That little cluster of pink buildings hold both the Beach Bar and Low Key Watersports. The boat to the farthest right is one of theirs.  

This weekend was a repeat of last weekend. Hell, I even landed in the same field as the weekend before when an AFF student decided he was going to pull lower than normal.

I did have 2 students in ground school; a daughter and her father. It was her 18th birthday. He did good; she did great. She had a bunch of relatives call her and try and talk her out of it. Glad she didn't take their advice. She was scared, but once she got out the door she had a blast.

Sunday was rainy, so I read at home. I plowed through The Rise of Endymion, the last book in the Hyperion saga. Good stuff. If I have one complaint it is that Simmons spends too much damn time writing about scenery. After a while I start blah blahing through it to get through to the action. And the last book has a lot of speeches to explain everything that has been going on. But still I have about 50 pages to go and I hope I can finish it during lunch.

When I emailed around for information on how to take over the world, Hitler, Stalin, Blofeld, and Senator Palpatine all replied with this link: Here.

It have given me a lot of super ideas. The one that drives me nuts is what am I going to do with the world once I have taken over and am the Supreme High Chancellor God of Everything I Survey?

Top 10 things I would do if I ran the world

10: Fire all the government workers. Hire only male models with I.Q.'s below 90. I'm not prejudiced; I don't care if they're gay or not. I just want them to be pretty and stupid. They'll be just as ineffective, but at least the scenery will improve.

9: My standing bodyguard would be all male models with I.Q.'s above 90. All 3 of them.

8: Full frontal male nudity will be allowed on network television. Oh, all right, female as well. What the hell, full blown hardcore pr0n! w00t!

7: Move the Capitol of the world to St. John in the Virgin Islands and make it my pleasure dome/lair/hideout. Feed the occasional secret agent who tries to stop my nefarious plans to the barracudas, stray chickens, and feral donkeys. Everyone in the Virgin Islands will be moved to Florida. Everyone in Florida will be moved to Wisconsin; everyone in Wisconsin will be moved to San Fransisco, and everyone in San Fransisco will be moved to Israel. All Israelis will be moved to Utah, where they will just have to get along with the Mormons because I can't think of anywhere I want to put them.

6: Serve beer in high school not that you would be required to attend. I bet attendance would improve somewhat, though.

5: Eliminate Region Coding on DVDs. Tell Europe to rewire to 120 V and switch to NTSC or else. And drive on the RIGHT! Oh, ok in deference to fairness, all Americans must forevermore refer to cookies as 'biscuits' and elevators as 'lifts'.

4: Issue a standing order that anybody who directs a movie with 'shaky cam' scenes in it will be shot on sight. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Michael Bay.

3: All taxes will be eliminated but you must pay tribute to the Holy Temples I'll have built everywhere. Pay what you think is appropriate; six-packs accepted. Unless it's in cans. That will get you burned at the stake. Incidentally, the temples will not be built to me, they will be built to Charlton Heston. Because he's one of *my* personal gods, that's why. His statues will have him in full Moses mode, in deference to my western religious upbringing. Just be grateful I'm not having you bow down to Bill Paxton.

2: All Reality Shows will be banned. I'm halfway tempted to ban all shows about cops, lawyers, and doctors, but I do realize I can't make the world perfect. I will declare a moratorium on amnesia and evil twin plots, though. Joss Whedon, since he's the only one in recent memory who managed to write GOOD evil twin/amnesia teleplays, will be my secretary of state.

1: Establish a Her Royal Highness Shakespeare Company. I know you're thinking my reason for this is peurile, but it's really my plan to prevent any good British actors from being cast as James Bond. Now that I think of it, there is all ready a plot to keep that from happening.

Woo-hoo! *shred* *shred* *shred* *shred* *shred* *shred* *shred* Yippee! *shred* *shred* *shred* *shred* *shreditty* *shreditty* *shred* *shred* Whee! *shred* *shred* *shred* -oh, hi ma!! 

Ah, I'm still bored. After politics I need some unadulterated horse poop to soothe myself back into my normal lull.

I watched part of the MTV movie awards last night. I decided to TiVo it at a later hour so I could skip through the boring stuff. One thing I did catch was an appearance and song by The Beastie Boys. My first thought was, "geez, they look kinda old!". Has it been that long since they declared that we had to fight for our right to par-tay?

Well, I ran across this site today:Retro Crush. It has a link to the aforementioned song. Or at least part of it. Damn them, now I have that stupid Madness song stuck in my head.

Whoa, must be really bored today, because I'm going to talk about politics. Bolt now, if you are so inclined.

I have decided it's not liberals who bother me, nor conservatives. It's the hate mongers on both sides. I have arrived at the conclusion that all hate is the same, why you hate is a matter of semantics. This motto sums up the politics of hate: "Shut up, or I'll kill you!"

It's easy to demonize people. If they are monsters, they are safe to hate. That's why Nazi is thrown around in newsgroups with such royal abandon; Hitler being the apotheosis of demonic humans. The trouble is most humans, and I mean the vast majority of us, are not demons and we have reasons for believing and thinking what we do; even if those reasons are based on ignorance and/or faulty logic.

Actually in regard to Hitler this word was a funny choice:

apotheosis
SYLLABICATION: a·poth·e·o·sis
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. a·poth·e·o·ses (-sz)
1. Exaltation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. Elevation to a preeminent or transcendent position; glorification: “Many observers have tried to attribute Warhol's current apotheosis to the subversive power of artistic vision” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Magazine November 17, 1996).
3. An exalted or glorified example: Their leader was the apotheosis of courage.
ETYMOLOGY: Late Latin apothesis, from Greek, from apotheoun, to deify : apo-, change; see apo– + theos, god;


But fitting, I say.

Excuse me, but I'm going to go blast some flesh-eating zombies, now.

Another link o' the day. It's a Flash Game so you are warned!