All the World is a Stage, but Why Stay at Home?

Oof, it's too bad I've taken a liking to sherry because it seems to give me really bad hangovers. The time change did not help.

It's been rainy and gloomy and I've felt cooped up in this house--so I had to get out yesterday and decided to go downtown and visit Horton Plaza, the mall designed by Ray Bradbury. My habit, now and then, is to park in the Horton Plaza parking garage, get my ticket validated, watch some chess games that are usually taking place on the second floor, and then walk six blocks to eat at Pokez. Yesterday, though, I discovered parking's no longer free at Horton Plaza, you need to spend a minimum of ten dollars for three hours validation. Would have been nice if they'd told me before I went in. Fortunately, there's a CVS in the mall and I was able to buy the mouth wash and shampoo I was going to buy anyway.

I guess it's a reflection of the economy, record breaking days at Wall Street notwithstanding. The number of homeless people on the street when I walked to Pokez had roughly tripled since the last time I'd been downtown, too. On my way back from Pokez, I walked past a middle aged woman in a leather micro mini skirt and gaudy makeup explaining loudly to a group of disinterested homeless men, "He would have done the same to me!"

Behind her was a short man in a non-descript navy blue jacket, doubled over, clutching his stomach and crying. I think I bore witness to some gender roles being challenged.

I'd like to congratulate Sonya on her engagement to be married. I'd also like to second her opinion of the trailer for Joss Whedon's take on Much Ado About Nothing.

It does look really bad. Though I don't think all the blame necessarily goes to Whedon--directors rarely get any input into how their trailers are edited. This one seems for some reason to be using the loud flashbulb and light bubble prefab I suspect must come packaged with video editing software. I think I first saw it in a trailer for Dreamgirls.

Unlike Sonya, I am a fan of Whedon's television series, but I, like a lot of Whedon fans, always thought his strength was in writing, not directing, which he still really seems green at. Even his writing tends to benefit from spending several episodes with characters, often being a bit too sitcomy in his first episode or two. The actors in this trailer do sound very flat in trying to accommodate Shakespeare's dialogue for ironic sayitallinonebreath tones. I do have a soft spot for Amy Acker though. Well, I guess anyone who's watched through Angel would.

Twitter Sonnet #485

Late shoes cause the thinning of bloodless feet.
Peach fuzz rugs are not old enough to floor.
Boiled sweat takes colour out from the beet.
Souls drip tongues by the old brighter doom's door.
Hippie bandeau bikinis are all lies.
Any topless damsels get a brownie.
The teeth could cut grey beards on Family Ties.
Factory May Poles get shipped to the army.
Squads of prisms route the rainbow to math.
Boundless coal can cloud the erased hedge maze.
Baleen edges sharp and bright shape the path.
Petals shaved from gas pipes drift in the haze.
Kaleidoscope rubber tube haired hobos
Are represented by silent oboes.