Small blue things

Various, Sundry and their sister Judy will now present: Nothing in particular.

Interesting choice: Oprah picks "Night," by Elie Wiesel. Wonder if J.T. LeRoy was up on her reading list next and her advisors said, "O, babe, look. Pick something nobody's going to ask questions about, okay? Pick the one memoir nobody's going to question. Go for Elie. Nobel Prize, you know? Besides, everybody's already had to read 'Night' in high school by now, and it's only about 100 pages long. It'll be a sorbet, cleanse the palate from that Frey dude. And then we can get the guy in the seat. Huh? Whaddya say, O?"

Next: I do not heart MyVoice right now. We are having relationship difficulties. It appears that if I have the modem connected to their little phone box, the modem has a tendency to cut out, and I lose both Internet and phone. And sometimes, I don't. But if the modem is connected to the computer and not the phone box, I get Internet without lost connection. But no phone. So, here we go again. Wherever you are, hello Patrick in Omaha. I've been calling so much that I actually got the same Tier 3 representative today, and he even appeared to recall my phone call back in November, albiet with some restrained horror that the situation remained unresolved.

On Saturday: Went to see "Brokeback Mountain" and "Syriana." I wish there had been a way to see "Brokeback" without knowing the plot first. The first scenes are when Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger meet for the first time, all laconic and marble-mouthed (Ledger the most so) and it'd have been nice to just see how the relationship developed rather than waiting for one to make some kind of move on the other -- which doesn't happen for at least a good half hour or so. Anyway, I liked the movie; the final scenes are touching and airy and literary in a way modern movies rarely are. But I never quite got what those two saw in each other. Putting aside that It's Jake Gyllenhaal! It's Heath Ledger! -- I just didn't get what was supposed to be sustaining a 30 year on-off relationship. One time, you can say it's lust. Three decades, I need a bit more than "I wish I knew how to quit you."

One question: Now, I know what the sheep herder foreman meant, but -- what does "stemming the rose" actually mean?

"Syriana" -- I remain baffled as to why people find this so hard to follow. Yes, there are a lot of intertwining stories that we dart back and forth from, but if you've seen "Traffic" (directed by the same guy) you'd know what to expect, and this was no less busy. I even had enough neurons left over to wonder where the hell I'd seen the good prince Nassir from; finally it hit: "Deep Space Nine," and I was all tweaky about that, because he's a complete geeky hottie with a British accent.



Until I got home and looked him up (Alexander Siddig), I'd always thought he was a Brit or Aussie with a good tan; turns out he's British-raised, but Sudanese. Anyway, I had that train of thought going while still pretty well following the rest of the story. "Brokeback" left me feeling sad about the small picture; "Syriana" left me feeling sadder about the big picture.

Wrote a review of the "Book of Daniel," in hopes I'll get to do some reviews for the magazine. What a silly piece of work that show is, despite that it has Aidan Quinn, who has lovely, astounding blue-gray eyes.

Oh, and the dog has gone incontinent. I swear. Pictures of her in doggie diapers to follow. Hello, 2006!