Indian Movies

Clearly I don't watch enough Indian movies and that is wrong!! If I did, perhaps I would see MORE scenes like this...

Yay, New Toys!

A few weeks ago I bought a scanner. Mostly it's for copying some of the materials I've received at school that I'll want to take with me wherever I go. Yes, I could just keep copies of the paperwork but that gets heavy and burdensome after a while. Now I can scan the sheets, turn them into PDFs, save an electronic copy, and BAM! Robert's your father's brother (as the English might claim).

Mostly I'm just playing around with it right now. What better to do on a rainy (and boring) Saturday afternoon?

Technical difficulties

My laptop needs to be updated...or I need to buy a new one. I'll probably update since I don't want to have to get used to a new one. Plus, I think it's cheaper. Right now my fave coffee haunt is having wi-fi issues and connection is spotty at best. Damn computers.

I'm bored. Any suggestions?

Live Earth...Marketing in Crisis

All week I've had to endure Sirius and the television nattering at me about the Live Earth concert. I've been avoiding the actual concert until about 5 minutes ago when I ran out of other things to watch. So I turned over to the concert and discovered...I still can't care.

I feel like Al Gore's waging a continuing assault on my apathy and I'm desperately supposed to care about the Earth and the environment (should that have a capital E?). But I'm thinking $348 (the cost of a ticket to the NYC concert) is roughly about the same as I spend for gas in a month and a half...there's irony in there somewhere, I think.

Well, what's your point, you're wondering. My point is...I hate most of the bands that played this thing and The Police were the only real draw for me and turns out...they're fucking boring in concert! At least on TV, in a stadium. YAWN. Great music, still boring.

Then they just went and ruined the whole thing by having Kanye West AND John Mayer join them on stage. I mean WTF! It's The Police!! Do they need these two hacks on the stage with them? (And I don't care how much you love Kanye - he's all fucking hype and very few actual skills. Okay, Mayer's just fucking boring - I need a nap just thinking about him.) Poor call on Sting's part. Now add Al Gore to this holier than thou fuckstorm! (Lemme just say, Al Gore in jeans...just...no. No. NOOOOOO!)

First of all, they'd better have used "green" electricity for this "event." And what about the parking and litter? I will be intensely annoyed and yet insanely amused if it turns out that Live Earth was less than eco-friendly.

Now here's a stupid question: what EXACTLY was the point of Live Earth? Nevermind the love, where's the money going? Or was the point simply to make the "greenies" feel better about themselves? Which they don't need - they're already so damn smug.

So...I saw a portion of Live Earth - all it really did was annoy me. I'm pretty sure I'm immune to the whole environmental hysteria - even if you get Duran Duran and The Police to sing at me about it.

Elephants

I love elephants. I've no idea why; I just do, always have. I have a very small collection of elephant figurines. I think they're amazing animals and there's something really intriguing about them - their size, their odd gracefulness, the society they create - it's all fascinating to me.

Did you know that elephants can be quite destructive? They strip trees of bark and leaves, which they eat; there are only a few trees, such as the baobab, which can survive this treatment. They also rub against trees to scratch itches. This causes the tree to lean rather precariously; some elephants have been seen to rub against a tree until they knock it completely down. Young males have been recorded knocking trees over just for fun. Weird, huh.

Check out the San Diego Wild Animal Park's Elephant Overlook for more information about the 10 African elephants in their care. Pretty cool.

While watching Planet Earth today, they showed elephants enjoying a swim and it was not a pretty sight at all. They look really awkward swimming - really, really awkward. Legs windmilling, trunk held just above the top of the water so they can breath, loose skin floating around - it looks a lot like some crazy kind of dancing. It made me laugh.

Do you have a favorite animal? Some animal you know waaaay, waaaay too much about? Well, share!

Rain + No Barbeque = Boredom

Here in Austin, we are currently experiencing one of the wettest summers in twenty years. Neat, huh. No.

My sister and I had planned a sort of family reunion (sort of because we didn't invite the ENTIRE family - that's pushing 30 or 40 people) at Quintana Beach down on the coast. However, she reported crazy downpours all morning so we've canceled. Damn. I wanted barbeque and beachiness today. Now I'm going to be bored and trying to find something to do all day.

Maybe I'll go shopping or actually give in to my urge to sleep all day. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do...sleep...or watch Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series. I love to watch this program - absolutely some of the most beautiful photographic work I've ever seen; plus it's really interesting.

What're your plans for the 4th of July?

Sleep at Last

A few days ago I wrote about how terrible my sleeping schedule has been for the last 3 days or so, I've only had about 9 hours of sleep.

Well Friday night I finally broke down and took a "sleep aid" which worked like a charm, provided you're clever enough to notice when your body shuts down, regardless or what you're brain is doing. I'm not that clever. Eventually I just plain conked out.

So now I'm on the way back to the land of the living (or at least day dwellers). Whoopee. I feel pretty certain that's way over-rated.