Aoh, fuck. It's only just now hitting me real hard that I'm missing Halloween this year.

I just can't do holidays. Not even my favourite ones. I prefer things to be on my schedule and holidays always have to be on their schedule.

Halloween's a social holiday (wait, I guess all of them are) and the fact that I mostly don't care to know the corporeal people I see, I, in Halloweens past, have had the task of making Halloween a one man thing. Sort of.

The best one so far was several years ago when I dressed as a witch and frightened people in the Super Market.

See, I'm all spirit and no revelry. I am damned committed to reminding people that Halloween's here for us to know we oughta be scared once and a while. I'm not here to join in your merrymaking. I'm here to play with you.

Well. There'll be none of that this year. I'm too fucking tired and I can't spend money on that.

My one act of Halloween--here's an old drawing of mine called "Awkletes";

Are you an alien scientist in need of a human being to use as a battery? I might just be your man.

Forced out of the house at 11am by the maids, and into the pouring rain, I might add, I went to Denny's. I there had eggs, potatoes, and several cups of black coffee. Afterwards, I went to the mall where I had a large cup of tea. Upon returning here, I immediately fell asleep again and slept for several hours, quite peacefully. Yeah, caffeine'll do that to ya.

Oh, and I dreamt of Wendy's. I dreamt of baked potatoes and a scandal that can be summed up with one word; pyjamas.

Anyway, it's beginning to feel like for all intents and purposes I'm "skipping" Thursday. I don't want to do this. I had grand big lofty hugemass plans. Surely I can do one of them.

The Iranian women in this photo are so cuuuuuute!

I'm not gonna play Morrowind any time soon, damn it.

Eh.

Vote Kerry.

I had a dream last night wherein I befriended a squirrel who'd been hiding in the house. No one wants a squirrel in the house, of course, so I was his political protector and so long as I was around, he couldn't be kicked out.

He was basically very happy that he didn't have to hide any more, that he could roam with relative freedom about the house. Towards the end of the dream, though, he started to get in trouble when the ceiling fan frightened him and he'd run all over the house, knocking a few things over. The cats had been surprisingly pleasant with him, but they had not, unfortunately, managed convey to him the harmlessness of the ceiling fan when one does not venture too close.

If you follow my link in the previous entry to where you can watch The Super Mario Super Show, you might also notice that there're a number of other shows you can watch. Looking over them earlier to-day, I spotted Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. Now, I am always up for anything done in the name of Sherlock Holmes and I'd been wanting to check this series out ever since I noticed it on Yahoo!'s TV listing. Unfortunately, it was on at a very awkward time of night/day so I never had opportunity to see it . . . until now!

For the most part, it's not very good. Holmes comes off as somewhat blinded by arrogance and ill temper. In fact, he doesn't seem especially smart at all. Lestrade seems more level-headed--in the series, Lestrade's now an attractive young woman in form-fitting cybernetic armour. I didn't really mind that idea, since it was the 22nd century. If only everything else'd been updated!

The show bases its stories loosely on Arthur Conan Doyle's originals, for which I would give it props if not for the fact that it doesn't bother to update these stories to account for futuristic crime-solving techniques. The show writers do bother, though, to dumb down the material and rearrange the plot so that there's no mystery at all.

The sad thing is that the animation, while far from good, looks like it probably cost some money. Why can't production companies spend their money properly? Don't they want to make a profit?

A few days ago I heard that the writer director of Alien vs. Predator has been hired to write the new Alien movie, presumably because of the success of AvP. Yes. Someone at 20th Century Fox looked at AvP's success and said to himself, "Well it must be the writer/director that made this the marginal success it is! It couldn't possibly be attributed to the fan build-up of more than a decade, or the rock-em-sock-em spectacular nature of the advertisements, no no!"

You know you have insomnia when, at 8am, you find yourself excitedly downloading an episode of the Super Mario Super Show.

It's amazing how bad cartoons were just ten or fifteen years ago. Looking through TV Tome, I was amazed how many of the "goofs" for episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to do with the wrong voices coming from characters or the characters being coloured wrong. And Ninja Turtles was popular.

I watched The Treasure of Sierra Madre earlier in the evening. Not as good as I'd hoped, but still very good. Certainly not my favourite John Houston movie, but it was neat seeing his cameo so I don't have to always picture him as the ghoulish old man from Chinatown.

Ugh. I haven't seen the sun in a couple days. I oughta go out and do something before class . . .

Last night I watched William Wyler's The Big Country. It was about Gregory Peck in the old west, having travelled there from the east to marry the daughter of a wealthy major. But he finds himself the only gentleman in the middle of a small, vicious war between two communities. I gotta admit, I like stories like that. A guy with very good principles sticking to them in the middle of a snake's nest, and who better for that than Gregory Peck?

It was a three hour movie I watched until 6am, and I slept in especially late to-day. In fact, it's now just after 6pm and I still haven't had breakfast. Or coffee. Things to do . . .

I also caught some of Read or Die, an anime movie being shown on Adult Swim. At first I thought it was a television series and I began considering it on that basis--I thought, "Hmm. Good character design. Relatively interesting concepts, good animation, but generally bland direction. Still, for a television series, not bad." But then I realised it was going for movie length. At which point I realised it'd probably been a far superior manga that was hastily purchased by some lame movie production company. Or maybe it's just another of what seems to be an endless supply of anime series with good character design and bad almost-everything-else (see Big O, Witchhunter Robin).

But I was, of course, watching the dubbed version of Read or Die. The Japanese version may make a far better impression as the English voice cast of Read or Die seemed to be the usual cadre seen on Adult Swim anime series with their heavily affected, peculiarly self conscious deliveries.

Now I shall get coffee and read . . . or die. One of those.

"That was the year I first met [John Kerry], at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the president's lawn." -Hunter S. Thompson

The new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up. Not a whole lot happens in it, but I made a special effort to make Nesuko sexy. So go see!

I just watched a very wonderful movie called Johnny Eager. Robert Taylor and Lana Turner . . . two actors whose abilities I've not yet been impressed by, impressed me very much in this movie. Perfectly cast bad actors, which I do believe can happen. In this case Taylor's shallow straightness was perfect. And Lana Turner just . . . happened to be rather good in this. Of course, the only other movie I'd seen her in was Cass Timberlane, so maybe she was just turned on by the material. Gods, I like thinking about Lana Turner turned on. Er, I've been awake too long.

But lest ye miss it--Johnny Eager is awesome. A crime, film noir movie from 1942 directed by Mervyn LeRoy, it had a kinna story I really respond to with great dialogue and a drunk, perfect Van Heflin . . .

Aw, I'm too tired to talk about it. But it was cool crimes perpetrated by characters in dark clothes and one sweet, innocent dame with the most perfect physical features imaginable. Gods, I love seeing a good movie.

I need to go back to blogging at a time of day when I'm more articulate.

Missed me? Well, I missed me, whatever you did of me.

Hmm. So yesterday was another Thursday, another Thursday now blessedly dead. The maids came early, at 11 am. I, of course, hadn't managed to sleep until 6am . . . So, about four hours of sleep there. For some people, that would be good enough. Oh, not for me. Because when what I wanna get done by the end of the day is drawings, it means I'll be sitting prone for long periods, trying to bring full concentration to bear. Look, I know my drawings aren't perfect, and I know I'm not a perfectionist. And I know I'm not getting paid for this and that I'm devoting my time in a manner many would advise against. But I'm obsessed and that's that.

So at eleven, because I'd dreamed of it during the brief repose, I went to University Town Centre. Finding no breakfast there and peculiarly annoying crowds, I drove across many miles of San Diego, down the great Genesee avenue, turning through a good sized Korean community, through the impressively sprawling College Whose Name I Can't Remember, plummeting at the speed limit (35mph) down a hill towards the raging sea . . . and then turning left, driving up a ways, and parking in a crowded little shopping centre, I finally decided to breakfast at a new Greek place.

Wish I hadn't. The Spanakopeda tasted like tire. As did the salad. And the rice.

Wandering strangely had more than eaten up the three hours I'd needed gobbled and I came back here to sleep. Victoria the cat hopped into bed with me and I proceeded to have a dream wherein she was a superhero. At the conclusion of this episode of astounding feline heroism, Victoria woke me up, apparently confident her story had at last been passed on, and jumped out of the bed.

Then I pretty much worked on Boschen and Nesuko the rest of the day. I finished page 39 and got a good start on page 40. So the new chapter oughta be up on time.

Oh, and Wednesday night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. Not as good as Notorious, which he made pretty close to the same time (also with Ingrid Bergmen), but very good anyway. A baby-faced Gregory Peck, a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, and neat 40s quasi-authentic psychology came together in a real nifty package. And that Hitchcock guy? I'm beginning to notice that he has something of a talent for suspense!

I'm currently on track. I'm not behind on anything. But I've been behind twice in the past week, mostly from feeling like-a the crap (as Chico Marx might say).

And yet, in spite of that, I've been watching lots and lots of movies. Farscape: Peackeeper Wars was great . . .

SPOILERS AHEAD:

This mini-series might've been called Farscape: Bigger and Shorter. In a lot less time, a lot more happened. But it was always fun--bracing. A great ride. What Star Wars has lost.

And isn't that amazing? With lower budget and with less time, Peacekeeper Wars managed a better impact than the prequel films.

I had some favourite moments, although I'm not sure the writers meant for them to be my favourite moments. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed everything well enough. But I loved the moment Scorpius pushed Sikozu to the ground, revealing her as spy, and their subsequent brief, mysterious exchange. And I loved everything Rygel said. Especially when Chiana asked him if he thought she gave a frell about him and he said, "Yes."

And the climax was great, the big red death storm. I knew all along that the Eidolons weren't gonna fix everything, because that would have sucked. And Farscape doesn't, as a rule, suck. Really, I wanted all the Eidolons to die, but I guess they were a good distraction, a avenue for the heroes to dally with before they finally admitted to themselves there wasn't gonna be a clean way to do this. Anyway, I liked seeing Jool in her sexy cavegirl outfit pounce on Crichton. For some reason, it really turned me on that she resembled Red Fraggle from Fraggle Rock.

The ending-ending was all right. It feels wrong somehow that Farscape should have such a happy ending, but saying that makes me wonder if I oughtn't to be a happier sort of person.

Two things about the end reminded me of ends of other shows, and I'm wondering of it was done on puprose. First, Harvey's farewell in the remarkable reconstruction of a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey reminded me of the last Comedy Central episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which had Dr. Forrester in the bed, reaching, instead of towards the monolith, towards a giant video cassete labelled "The Worst Movie Ever" or something.

The second thing was the camera pulling away from Crichton, Aeryn, and their baby to pull back, out of Moya, turning into an exterior shot, being the very last of the show. The same thing was done in the very last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, after Picard sits down to poker with his crewmates.

Probably just coincidences. It's reading Moi's journal that makes me think this way (not necessarily a bad thing).

And now I'll sleep.

It rained for almost twenty seconds last night--it was exciting! Anyway, my car is bizarrely clean this morning. Er, this afternoon, I mean.

I've got a lot to do! But I'm not behind like I was yesterday so I'll have time to watch Farscape on the Sci-Fi Channel at 9pm. Why don't you watch it too?

Nice to see William Gibson is blogging again. And it's nice to see he's angry.

I know some of you don't like Jon Stewert, but this shit is just beautiful.

I dreamt there were two Linuses and one of them was going to kill Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown didn't actually show up in my dream but the Linuses were uncommunicative, dangerous black-cloaked (black blanketed?) characters who could run faster than cars and for some reason they enjoyed running north. They were kind of scary, especially as I was sure one wanted to kill me, too.

Last night was kind of interesting. I went to see a movie called Maria Full of Grace. Not the sort of movie that would usually capture my interest by its advertisements, but I periodically like to stave off stagnation of my appreciation for diverse art.

It's very easy for a drug movie to become boring and/or preachy but I was pleased to find this wasn't the case for Maria. On the whole, I found the movie oddly relaxing in the way I may've found a good movie from the thirties or forties. The reason I draw that comparison is that Hollywood movies from the mid 20th century had a tendency to want to be decently pretty and stress-relieving no matter how dark the story, in essence, was.

Maria Full of Grace is about a seventeen year-old Columbian girl who, finding herself without work, pregnant, and without the baby's father, decides to become a mule, carrying cocaine in her stomach for delivery in New York.

It's not that the movie sugar-coats anything (although Maria is improbably pretty and everyone has perfect hair and skin) so much as it avoids overdramatic gloom and doom. Maria shows herself capable of keeping a cool head in a tight situation, which I found engaging. And, as Ebert and Roeper pointed out, all the characters behave realistically and the people involved in accepting Maria's drug delivery are shown as being realistically stupid and macho instead of villainous. And there was a basically happy ending, which is just fine.

So I came back and decided to interact with the internet community a little more and made a lot of replies and posts on different Live Journals. One topic of conversation I was keen to engage upon was one taken up on both Poppy Z. Brite's journal and Caitlin R. Kiernan's, this idea of whether or not the artist's suffering is a requisite for good art. I finally found a forum where people were talking about it, and posting was possible, at prime_liquor. But this morning I found my post to it was inexplicably deleted, in spite of the fact that I didn't say anything mean or rude. Methinks I have a secret enemy.

But basically my take was that it's not necessary for an artist to suffer. The idea seems to me based on the idea that suffering is regarded as a kind of field research but, as I've already argued, experience with a subject is not necessary for creating good art about that subject. Experience is a tool, not a component, of good art. There're lots of tools and methods for putting those components together.

Yes, you have to know emotions and the only way to know human emotions is to have them. But there’s no reason to go overboard. To look for suffering is silly as, unless you’re a cartoon character, you’re bound to’ve suffered at some point in your life.

Finally punched through a muthafuckin' barrier last night.

I'd been roaming the desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape for months, occasionally getting my ass handed to me by mutant geckos, aliens, or bandits. And why? Well, in New Reno I'd decided to do jobs for the Mordino family. Things were goin' well until I was ordered to take out old man Salvatore, owner of Salvatore's bar. What Senor Mordino didn't tell me was that Salvatore's men were armed to the fucking colon. Many times I died in that bar, listening to Ron Perlman wish me peace in the afterlife. I was weak, see. I needed to be fucking badass, badass enough to slaughter a whole room full of well armed men.

So I roamed the wastes, looking for my break, and finally the clouds started to part.

I stumbled on a little foray between some bootleggers and some bandits. I helped the bootleggers, then helped myself to the bloody corpses of bandits, obtaining for myself some hunting rifles, some grease guns, and plenty of ammo. Took these to New California Republic, got myself well outfitted. Well enough to come back to New Reno, walk into New Reno arms, and kill not just the bastard who owns the place but his dogs too. That got me real well outfitted. Grenades, combat shotguns, the works. But sometimes it's the simple shit that makes life good. My favourite thing? The sledgehammer. Just a big, sweet fucking hammer.

Salvatore's boys were real impressive in their shiny metal armour, firing their laser pistols. They're less impressive after an SMG has made 'em into Chef Boyardee.

I did that to the first guard. After I realised their silly little lasers weren't doing shit to my armour, I started a little system; first, sledgehammer meets groin. Man falls over. Then sledgehammer meets skull. Man is dead.

Yeah, they started to run. But I'm faster.

And what ever happened to old man Salvatore? He was already a cripple but he was eight times the cripple before I turned him into stain. Then all that was left was his sad little oxygen tank.

Needless to say, Senor Mordino and I're good pals now.

(I love Fallout 2)

Hola, mes tomodachi. And what a wonderful morning this is, here at 4pm. The only way to sleep, I tell ya folks.

I think the house guests are leaving to-day for which I'm glad. I don't hate the guy for having autism, but I miss having time alone in the evenings. I think this has illuminated for me the true, primary reason for my sleeping schedule; as Miss Garbo put it, I want to be alone.

So last night, with the guy, who's name is Justin, who wanted to sit close to me, I watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Justin was quiet for the whole movie which makes me wonder how much he understood. Hell, I don't know that autism inhibits comprehension that way. Honestly, I didn't know anything about autism until a few days ago.

When I first met Justin he didn't talk very much so I was compelled to fill the uncomfortable silence with my babbling. Somehow the subject of obsession came up at which point I delivered my standard line, "Obsession's a good thing. I think it's very healthy," said with utter sincerity.

Justin got a vaguely incredulous look on his face and said something about how he had a kind of obsession. "Good!" I said, "That's very good. Very healthy."

Yesterday, I was making myself some lunch when I overheard my grandmother talking on the phone about my aunt, Rumi, "Justin's obsessed with her! He can't go to bed without a hug from her--well it's part of his autism." And I smiled to myself wondering what malignity I may spread in this world. But then again I wondered where this philosophy could go when applied to an actual mental impairment.

So what did I think of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? I think Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Sidney Poitier are great actors. I particularly enjoyed Poitier's edgily unpredictable gesticulations. His conversation with his dad, which Roger Ebert is rightfully uncomfortable with, was barely audible for me, fixated as I was on simply watching Poitier move. This is only the second movie I've seen him in and I'm hoping one day I'll actually see him with good material.

For 'twas the three actors that made Guess Who's Coming to Dinner any good. The supporting cast were almost thoroughly awful, especially the gratingly perky Katharine Houghton, Hepburn's real life niece. How Poitier's character could possibly have fallen in love with her is truly mysterious. Then there's the stereotypical catholic clergyman and the stereotypical black woman maid.

Stanley Kramer again shows himself to me merely to be a basically competent, uninteresting director. The best thing you could say about him is that most of the time he's not doing something stupid.

Before the movie, I watched MGM's 1939 cartoon "Peace on Earth", a movie that cheerfully points out that after mankind destroys itself, there shall indeed be plenty of peace on earth. Really lovely, I thought. And great animation, from the cheerful grandfather squirrel to the dying human soldier sinking into the mud.

I drew it a few minutes ago. Don't know why. He's my mood, I guess. Not so pretty is he? I wonder if anyone can see the necktie growing out of the asshole on his shoulder?

I wonder why the clock next to computer keeps giving me random, inaccurate times?

Installed some old computer games this evening, including Quake, which I can't remember how to get working with Windows XP. I also installed Fallout 2 but what I ended up playing was TIE Fighter. Dear, sweet TIE Fighter. I played the first training mission and was able to hold my own against several waves of hostile Z-95 Headhunters before they got me with the three or four shots necessary to take out the plain, unshielded TIE Fighter.

Sheesh, I remember the days when my piloting skills were such that I could survive a mission in a TIE Fighter that had me up against TIE Advanceds and Imperial Star Destroyers. Gods, I love that game.

The primary theme of the past twenty hours or so has been waiting.

I waited for several things after discovering late last night that there was a house guest wandering the house that I wasn't expecting. A quiet, mildly autistic guy, a friend of my aunt's, who seemed nice. His mother was (or maybe is) staying here as well, but she, like everyone except me, the guy, and the cats, was asleep. I don't mean to belittle someone with a condition he obviously can't help and I feel for him but there was a lot of waiting involved in talking to him. Not that I minded, mind you. It's a theme, is all.

He got sick, which my aunt and I only discovered at 4am, a time which I had waited (you see, waited) for to go to sleep because I was a little jittery with the strange situation. My aunt knocked on the door, saying she needed a ride to work because the guy's mother needed my aunt's car to get the guy to the hospital.

I got dressed, and drove my aunt at 4:30am to work, through fog that made going slightly slow. One could say I was forced to wait (you see, wait!) longer before arriving at the destination. My aunt works at Starbucks, so we waited for thirty or so minutes outside in my car for her co-worker to show and unlock the doors. I had the wonderful Vertigo soundtrack playing and felt slightly like Jimmy Stewart waiting for Kim Novak to come out of her apartment.

I took the long route back, was diverted by a major car accident, and stopped at a gas station to wait for an especially slow pump to fill my car. Then I came back and tried to sleep until 9am (but mostly waited) at which point I had to call my parents and tell them I couldn't go with them to L.A. to-day (as planned) because I needed to wait until noon to pick up my aunt.

I managed some sleep before my alarm went off at 11am, got dressed and all, and found a note saying my aunt wasn't to be off work until 1pm. As I didn't particularly feel like trying to sleep for one hour, I decided to go to Starbucks and wait. I read a lot of Murder of Angels there, which is getting a lot better--and I was enjoying it before. The second half so far seems to be absolutely wonderful.

I was feeling numb and was having difficulty concentrating, though, as I eventually had to wait until 2pm before my aunt was released.

Then there were some other things I had to wait for but I'm sure I've bored you enough (it gets a lot more boring). But needless to say, I'm really glad I uploaded the Boschen and Nesuko chapter early or I'd have been in really bad straits right now. As it is, I feel flattened.

I've put up the new chapter a day early (blogger's being a shit about perfectly simple html tags right now so you'll have to click the link to the right). While others may talk of getting naked, Boschen and Nesuko are wrapping it up.

Interesting presidential debate. It was good seeing the two guys not anchored by podiums, roaming about like vicious dogs (or as close to vicious dogs as two fairly stiff guys in suits can be). Kerry has content on his side but Bush has cleaned up some of the embarrassing facial tics from last time (although not all of them). says he seemed shrill, but maybe that didn't stand out to me because I'm accustomed to all of Bush's mannerisms being repellant.

In the world of critical viewers, Kerry won. But as to who actually will end up benefiting . . . There are, of course, factors of which we are all aware and which I find too depressing to mention right now.

I am a hybrid of: Indie Girl Academic Girl Click on the pictures below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

Tired. That's the kind of girl I might be in the other reality. A tired one. Colour me faded pink. Salmon. Actually, though, I hate that colour.

So what've I been up to? Not too much. I decided to tackle two pages of web comic yesterday so that I'll have more time to-day to go over things I wanna change before uploading. I also saw The Year of Living Dangerously, which I thought was pretty good. Mel Gibson before he was crazy or American (redundant?), Sygorney Weaver's wonderful odd accent covered by a fascinating false British one, and Linda Hunt playing a male. And all of it in tumultuous Indonesia. Not to mention directed by Peter Weir. You know, I'd really like to get Picnic at Hanging Rock on DVD.

Tired . . .

Yesterday was basically pretty good. I got to work early on my web comic, and was rather happy with how the page turned out. Then I went to Submarina for a sandwich. As I was sitting there eating, a very small girl with glasses walked up to me and asked, "Are you a wish?"

I starred at her dumbly a moment, trying to figure out what she was asking. "I'm sorry," said her mother as she led her away.

"It's quite all right," I said, smiling. But it was only after they'd left that I realised the girl was asking me if I was a witch--she saw me wearing all black with a black hat. She'd probably just been Halloween shopping with her mother and had been told that the black hats on the shelves were what witches wore.

So then I was in a very good mood. I took it to class where I proceeded to get pissed off as a few of the more vocal students praised a badly written poem about Hitler being chosen by God to be a martyr of evil. A couple of the students seemed very enthusiastic regarding the idea about all the social reforms that came about as a reaction to the existence of Hitler.

I tried, sadly, not in my best words, to explain to them what juvenile idiots they were being. What I wish I'd said is, "Sure, good things've happened. Bad things've happened, too. But more good things than bad things? Probably not but we can't really say. All we really can say is that things happened because things happened . . . in which case, no shit. It's common sense, not a revelation. And if you think you can pass off Hitler as some kind of divine lightning rod for good social change, well, you may as well say the same for all the ills you would have it that his example was a remedy for; racism and cruelty. In which case, you're basically saying, 'when we get rid of bad things, we can have good things in their place.' Your argument is based entirely on your teenage desire to shock people with 'logic' and you're unwittingly setting back the standing of real logic in this world."

What I actually said was a more confusing and shorter version than the above before the teacher told me to desist when another student and I began discussing whether or not the idea was fundamentally Judeo-Christian (I don't think it necessarily is).

And last night I dreamt I was made to wait in a doctors office several hours with Hayden Christensen, who was also there for an appointment. Awkward small talk consisted of me trying to say nice things about his performance in Episode II.

Anyway, I needs coffee.

My interest in the presidential race has prompted me to watch a bit of the 24-hour news networks. Damned scary stuff. I mean, I'd heard there was a right wing bias on most of these channels but it was nevertheless astonishing to see it at work. From so-called "fact-checkers" who wilfully misinterpreted or brazenly misquoted Kerry in order to make him wrong, to panels of political journalists who argue the most absurd and irrelevant points.

The other day I watched a show on MSNBC called Scarborough Country consisting of host Scarborough debating with a number of people, most of whom were right-wingers. The two representatives of the left wing were young women whom I suspected may've been either plants or were simply chosen because they were cute and not very bright. Every single one of the right wingers harped on Kerry's display of flip-flopping in the debate and not one of the left wingers thought to point out that Kerry did not display any flip-flopping during the debate. The item Scarborough was primarily alluding to, the fact that Kerry called Hussein a threat while also calling the war a mistake, was never even suggested as not being a contradiction. It was telling that when Al Franken came on for a one on one with Scarborough, Scarborough carefully avoided the issue; Franken was too high profile to be owned by the network.

Ugh.

I watched Anthony Adverse last night, a late 1700s melodrama made in 1936. Every time I see Olivia De Havilland in a movie I like her just a little more. Which is, I guess, the way with great movie stars. It's hard to believe that she's not only still alive, but is currently teaching Sunday school at a church in Paris. A woman born in Japan to British parents, who became an American movie star, and now lives happily in France.

Anthony Adverse was itself a strange mishmash of nationalities and I had trouble figuring out where it took place half the time. The confusion culminated in one scene where Claude Rains, a British actor, said to Edmund Gwenn, who was speaking with a Scottish accent, "Au revoir, senor!"

Last night I dreamt I met a Japanese girl at Parkway Plaza who insisted she was Indian. I flirted with her until her hyperactive older brother showed up and insisted I go for a ride with them. In the back seat of their small car I listened to them tell me about a movie made in the 1930s about some Korean immigrants living alone in the Rocky Mountains.

It's weird how I get these flirt dreams. Must be my Victorian soul (although I do dig this immensely. Anyone who says there’s nothing erotic about ballet is sadly deluded) . . . Last night I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a pretty good movie starring Gene Tierney as a young widow living in a house haunted by a dead sea captain played by Rex Harrison. George Sanders shows up as The Man the Lady Falls For Instead of the Lead and We're Therefore Supposed to Hate (though I thought he was quite charming). The cinematography's really good with some beautiful darks and lights in clean, high contrast. And of course Bernard Herrmann's score is absolutely great.

Gene Tierney's good and quite pretty although you wouldn't know it from the DVD cover. For some reason, the image pads her normally strong cheekbones until her features are floating aimlessly in a strange peach void. Another funny thing about the DVD cover is that it refers to the movie as an Academy Award nominee of 1942--even though the movie was made in 1947. Some memo-writer has bad handwriting.

Looks like everyone agrees Kerry won the debates. Even the Republicans are saying that Kerry won "on style," which essentially translates to solid victory. Bush seemed like a kid who got called into the principal's office for breaking a window.

I'll be interested in seeing the Vice President debates next week. With the level of control Cheney's purported to have in the White House, it seems almost like the presidental candidate debated the sitting vice president while the vice presidental candidate now has to debate the sitting president.

Anyway, I've got a lot to do this evening . . .