Energy in Shallow Water

On the way back from the dentists' to-day I saw a girl wearing a miniskirt riding a vespa down a hill on a 55 mph street. The front of the vespa protected her modesty, but I have to think she's taking some frozen genitals home. I definitely have a lot more respect for her than the guy riding a bicycle who positioned himself in front of my car at a stoplight shortly afterwards. I hate it when bicyclists think they're driving something comparable to a car.

I took some stale hamburger buns to the ducks yesterday, and had to search around for them a bit as someone else had brought a dog to the river and scared them away from their usual spot. After I'd finished feeding them, I spotted a bunch of tiny fish in shallow water among a bunch of reeds. They were pretty camera shy, scattering when I got close, but with a little patience I managed to get some decent pictures.









I don't think there are any fish in this one, but I like this picture.


One of the bees I saw on the way back.

There are a lot of damselflies and dragonflies in the area I've been dying to get pictures of, but they're too quick. This is the best I've done so far;



I watched the newest Boardwalk Empire yesterday, and it was the first episode I found to be mostly disappointing. They'd already established that Margaret, the Irish immigrant played by Kelly Macdonald, had read a lot of books when she was a servant in Ireland, and when she found herself at a party Nucky was throwing for a senator and the mayor of Jersey City where Nucky had unsuccessfully tried to convince the two politicians that women getting the vote was a serious idea, I knew she'd somehow demonstrate her intelligence to the men in a way that would be useful to Nucky, further endearing her to him and now becoming an attractive contrast to his airhead girlfriend. Which is okay, if not terribly interesting, though I was annoyed when Margaret, who had been terribly flustered and nervous meeting just with the Atlantic City treasurer, coolly and without a hint of anxiety rattled off some knowledge about world events to the senator and mayor and even argued with them a little. I knew this stock immigrant character would be trouble, and already this car is skidding all over the road. Nucky's a good match for her, though, as so far the self-confident character is worn by Buscemi like an ill-fitting suit. Buscemi has that razor sharp delivery still, and quick, big eyes--there's just too much energy uncomfortably contained. He needs more opportunities to really have a fit. In any case, he's never going to be Michael Corleone.

There seemed to be a push for strengthening the female characters in this one by people who don't appear to know how to do it--Gretchen Mol seducing that thug--because she was hot for him--in the face of him threatening her to find out Jimmy's location was all right until you remember we'd found out in the previous episode he has gonorrhoea. And as much as I like seeing Gretchen Mol naked, it bugs me that she's playing the mother of a guy just nine years younger than her. It was revealed a couple episodes earlier as a surprise that she's his mother--the scene, with him hugging her before identifying his relationship to her, was put together to make us think she might be his mistress. So there seems to be a deliberate plan to show how sexy this lady is for her age but, although all art is a con of one sort or another, this felt like a lousy trick. It's the makers of the show basically saying, "Here's a sexy older woman. But since there's no such thing as a sexy older woman, here's a sexy young woman we're calling a sexy older woman." And I'm saying this as a guy who's not attracted to older women--it annoys me.