None of These Dots Connect

1. Airplane stationary between runways, waiting for a gap in the every-9-seconds take-offs and landings to taxi to the gate. Sunset, a steady stream of flights appearing magically, hey-presto, out of crimson and grey cloud banks, landing lights ablaze. Magical. What is it about watching flights land and take off that fires the imagination?

2. Red sofa and sheets in lamplight, warmth against the drizzly cold gloom of a too-cold-too-early winter.

3. A week-long vacation at the Grand Canyon. Driving through desert, past vermilion cliffs, across the mighty Colorado. No laptop, no Blackberry, no thoughts of work. A daily dose of beer, If On A Winter's Night, A Traveler, the Gotan Project, family. More, please.

4. Family get-together. Arrivals timed to make me go to the airport thrice in 48 hours. 5 of us in my 1-bedroom apartment, getting in each other's way - and into each other's hair. All the inevitable squabbles and then some. Still perfect.

Faith & Reason

An astounding series of interviews with prominent authors about the twin ideas of faith and reason, and how they impact our lives and futures. Watch.

Link courtesy M.

Crime & Enjoyment

I'd totally buy these.
Though I suspect that the real cosies come from reading the originals, while snuggled into a squashy sofa lit by the glow of a single lamp, on stormy evenings


Link from M.

Familiarity breeds... ummm... contempt?

Me: LMAO
(short, telling silence)
S: Are you trying to make cat noises?
Me: No, but I KNEW you'd say that.

~ ~ ~

S: aghotrrj
Me: have you gone insane, or is your cat walking across the keyboard again?
S: ha ha ha - I KNEW you'd say that.

Yippi Ki Yay Mo

So I just got back from watching Live Free or Die Hard, which was a spectacular movie. Spectacularly bad, that is. Although highly entertaining. Among other things, the movie features Bruce Willis hanging from every conceivable item (a walkway, an F-35 plane, the open door of a car balanced precariously in what appears to be an elevator shaft), jumping out of a car at the last moment, to send it up a pillar with such precision as to collide with and take out a helicopter, surfing on the wing of the aforesaid F-35 as it's about to crash, and in a spectacular wheelie with an 18-wheeler, which Mr. Willis gets out of, against all known laws of physics, by turning the steering wheel in the direction that will actually disbalance him more. (At the end of this scene, I wanted to jump up and cheer, and throw loose change at the screen!) And, of course, there were some scenes that were lifted straight from other movies (the elevator shaft scene carries shades of one of the Jurassic Park movies, for instance).

And as we stood around rehashing and laughing hysterically at some scenes, the conversation rolled around to the worst movies we've ever seen. Immediate contenders for the rank of world's worst movie were:
a. Independence Day (Best line: "Today will be known as the independence day of the whole world.")
b. Dante's Peak
c. King Solomon's Mines
d. Matrix Revolutions
e. Commando
f. Air Force One (Best line: "Get off my plane!")

What thoughts, people? If I wanted to watch some really, really terrible movies, what would you recommend?

Conversation

R: Do you want to play Dumb Charades?

Me: Yes, let's! But we'll need to get the others to play too, not just the two of us.

R: Yes. Because that would be dumb.

Me: It would be a charade.

R: Yup. We're all done here, aren't we?

Learning

1. You may be as much in the right as it is possible to be, but the customer is the customer. You don't have the right to tell her she's irrational, unprofessional or mediocre. You don't have the right to grab her lapels and shake her into comprehension. You don't have the right to scream and shout and kick her shins, even when she's beating her fists on the floor and throwing tantrums about your being unable to resolve her mistakes, even when she offers no gratitude for the help you offer. Yours but to offer the assistance you can, keep your temper and know when to walk away from games of "who blinks first".

2. Hope dies eternal. Walking away is difficult. You always think, around this next bend will be a solution for us both.

3. Serenity prayer.