I survived. I wasn’t dead last. I’m a happy (and sore) camper. It’s also late. I will write in detail later.
Tag: 2009 (Page 8 of 10)
Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life
I checked this book out of the local library. I have been a regular reader of the author’s blog, Zen Habits for quite a while.
This book is a synthesis of the website itself with the basic theme of productivity spelled out: to get the most out of life, cut out the busy work and focus on the essential. The author then goes into detail with steps on how to achieve this aim.
Some of his ideas include:
Figure out your values and the three most important things to do. Eliminate or cut down on the other things. Be in the moment and do only one thing at a time. Pick out two or three “most important tasks” (his words) and put those at the beginning of the day so you get something done. Pick one or two times a day to make phone calls instead of throughout the day.
This is an easy to read book and while some of the ideas have been presented in other formats, this book seemed to put them in a far more simple format than I’ve read elsewhere.
Now the book doesn’t address the person who has so many commitments because of their need to please so many people and it doesn’t address the person whose work schedule has more tasks than can be chopped up into only three important tasks.
I do think that most people who read this book will get something out of it.
I confess the first time I saw the trailer for this movie I was blown away. I knew that I would end up seeing this movie and would end up seeing it on opening day. I learned quickly that it was based on a graphic novel. I ended up getting the Watchmen
I did see the movie on opening day. I saw this movie on an imax screen at a theater in Little Rock. I arrived close enough to the scheduled show time that I was on the third row watching this movie on an imax screen. (yes this will be important later).
The Watchmen is set in 1985 in an America where people really do dress up in costumes and go out and fight crime. One of these superheroes was created due to an unfortunate accident involving uranium in a physics lab. The US won the Vietnam war and Nixon is serving his third sentence. We are still on the verge of nuclear war with the commie russians.
Don’t worry, the tacky 80s fashions and music is still the same stuff we knew and loved.
The movie opens with one of the costumed heroes being murdered (he was thrown out of a window of his high rise NYC apartment). The other heroes are on the case. Drama ensues. There’s sex, blood, domestic violence, male frontal nudity, and conspiracy theories.
The movie itself is three hours long and manages to put a lot of the graphic novel into the story. This movie gets an A+++++ for attention to detail. The characters and set design look exactly! like the frames in this graphic novel (or comic book for folks that don’t know what graphic novel means).
It was interesting and worth seeing. It wasn’t the BEST DAMN MOVIE EVER…
Oh and if you go to an Imax theater, don’t sit on the third row because being eye level with blazing blue radioactive testicles that are larger than your head is a little scary and more than a little distracting.
Last Thursday, I got an email from my friend Jennybee saying something similar to “when I opened my closet and found a blue suit jacket in my size, I thought the plus size clothes fairy had visited me but then I realized that it is probably yours”
Oops. The jacket was sitting in the front closet and yes I did completely forget about it. It was the jacket to my favorite suit and I would have been very disappointed come court appearance time not to have it at my disposal.
As luck would have it, she was coming to a town close to mine to celebrate her mother’s birthday and agreed to meet me so I could return her copy of Revolutionary Road
She was coming to the town near my town to celebrate her Mom’s birthday. She was a sweetie and invited me to meet her at Red Lobster where they would be having a birthday dinner. Awwwww.
Then we went to see Slumdog Millionaire
I just finished Barack Obama’s book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
President Obama writes about his life from the time he was born until his first visit to Kenya in the late 80s. OF course, the topics of this book have been covered by the press ad nauseum during his Presidential campaign: his drug use as a teen, his Kenyan father who left his mother when he was young, his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, and his time in college and as a youth organizer after graduation.
The thing that I discovered reading this book is that President Obama is a very thoughtful man who analyzes (and possibly overanalyzes) everything in his life. He seeks to understand himself and the world around him. He is emotional but seeks to understand his emotions and attempts to not let those emotions affect his decisions.
For me personally, I got a kick out of the section regarding his visit to Kenya. I visited Kenya during the summer of 1994 to help build a school in the Kenyan highlands. His descriptions of Nairobi and the Nairobi markets, the buildings, the tribal infighting, and the different modes of travel remind me of that time.
Lawrence Welk is more modern than I thought. Maybe he’s a NORML member. Oh wait he’s dead.
TOWNCRAFT
I vividly remember the first time I saw Slingblade. It was a matinee showing in a five screen movie theater in Dupont Circle (Washington DC). I remember scaring the other viewers because of my giggling. The movie itself wasn’t necessarily humorous but there were moments in that movie that were so quintessentially Arkansan and so represented Arkansans and people I knew that I couldn’t help but laugh in recognition.
This feeling of recognition was one I also felt while watching Towncraft.
Towncraft is about the punk scene in the late 80s/early 90s in Little Rock Arkansas. Apparently, one of the cool things to do during that time was start your own punk band or make a zine about the punk bands. Many fourteen and fifteen year old boys and girls began playing in bands. Eventually, venues began to open up for them to play. One guy opened up his own record store. They began making their own records and going on tour —All before they finished high school.
Of course, like all things involving high school kids, the bands break up and the musicians make new bands. This means that each time you see a person talking, s/he has a different band name under his or her face. That was amusing to me.
Several of the bands went to larger cities to try and make it. Some made albums. One guy, Jason White, is now a guitarist for Green Day. This movie is more about people being true to art than actually making. It’s also a nostalgic trip down memory lane for anyone who’s around Arkansas.
Amazingly enough these were my peers. Some of them I have met. Some of the people on the edges on this scene were friends of mine. I’ve seen some of these bands live.
The movie also has a companion website that has all sorts of goodies.
Supersize Me
Holy Shit! This movie scared me. It’s a simple premise. Morgan Spurlock decides that he’s going to eat nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days. He’s also going to only walk the average number of steps as an “average American.” He manages to gain a truckload of weight. He gets liver damage. He develops heart palpitations and one doctor even demands around day 20 that he stop this diet.
All on McDonald’s burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, and shakes.
Hubert Selby Jr.: It’ll Be Better Tomorrow
Hubert Selby Jr. is known as the author of Requiem for a Dream and Last Exit to Brooklyn. This documentary includes interviews with Selby, his friends, the makers of Requiem for a Dream and Last Exit to Brooklyn, Henry Rollins, and a whole host of other people who have been influenced by the author. Selby, like his characters, endured a life of illness and heroin addiction.
I, as a rule, generally don’t cook. For one thing, I am fairly bad at it. I once managed to burn Rice A Roni. I guess my low heat was higher than Rice A Roni’s low heat and I got some blackened rice. I do, however, like to try.
One of my favorite things is authentic tasting bagels. Most of the donut shaped bread things you buy at the grocery store aren’t really bagels. They’re just not. So when I read Hilary had made some bagels, I thought I would try it, too.
I had tried to make some bagels before and they didn’t turn out so well.
That is the picture before they were baked. As you can see, they are a little bit flat. After they were baked, they looked like cookies or something. They tasted good but oh they were flat– like a deflated balloon.
So this time, I used a different recipe that can be found here. There are even videos to show you how to knead and shape the things.
So away I went. First, you need a really big bowl because three cups of water and up to seven cups of flour makes a lot of dough. My first bowl was too small. The bowl I let the dough rise in was too small. I also managed to flour my entire house.
No really. Look at those pants. It looks like I peed flour all over myself.
I attempted to buy poppy seeds but no stores in tiny town carry poppy seeds. They didn’t even have the back up of sesame seeds so I ended up making regular plain non embellished bagels.
I think I didn’t let them boil long enough because they didn’t have the contrast between the outside crunchiness and the inside chewiness. But they were tasty. They tasted fresh. Fresh is good and they went well with a shmear.
I can’t complain.
I will say that this is an all morning or all afternoon endeavor. You have to let the dough rise for an hour. There’s also 10 minutes of resting here. Five minutes resting there. The boiling process takes a bit. Then they bake in the oven for about thirty minutes. Like I said, a whole afternoon.
But YUMMY! It just might be worth it.
Last weekend, I had to make a business trip to Fort Smith to tend to some rather stressful business. Since I’ve never been to that part of the state and have tons of friends who live there, I thought I would make it a “big fun weekend” Okay to be fair, the stressful business was originally scheduled for Tuesday but God intervened with the big block of ice.
Anyway, away I go to Fort Smith on Friday. I don’t put enough money in the meter and get a parking ticket. SCORE!
Meanwhile, I’m trying to get coordinated with friends via facebook from Kinko’s because I’ve never been to Fort Smith and don’t know any free wifi places.
I am supposed to meet up with Jennybee later that day. I’ve known Jennybee since high school, which was . . . TWO YEARS AGO! Yes. two years ago. Anyway, a lot has happened in those two years. We’ve dated some losers. Got married, divorced, moved to other states, moved back to Arkansas and a whole host of other things. Hey those were some busy years.
Well I was typing at Kinko’s and pop. There she is. I say “Hi Jennybee” and go back typing.
Yes I’m a dork like that. Then I got up and got all excited and we hugged and acted like 12 year old girls.
One of the fascinating things about seeing someone from your past is that you are instantly reminded of the person you used to be. You see how you’ve changed and how you haven’t.
I got the tour of the house and looked at the shelves and shelves of books and movies. I met the dog and the cat. Both were absolutely adorable. Of course, they loved me. The animals always love me. I emit a scent called “she who gives treats”
We ended up eating at Papa’s Pizza. (YUM!) and I finally met her husband Ben. Ben is a writer. He loves words. In fact, when I told him that Dork was a real word meaning Whale penis, he asked me if it was slang. (well looking it up, I find vulgar slang for “penis” Although someone who is not me at yahoo answers put that it meant whale penis as well. hrmm.) He is also perfect for my friend. Oh and he’s a beer aficionado.
There was eating and chatting. Then we went to their house and more chatting until I just popped out vegging in front of the TV.
The next day was scanning old pictures. More chatting and then they had to work and I had to go.
It was off to the Postsecret exhibit. There was still ice on the ground in Bentonville which was odd since I didn’t get ice at all. The roads were ice free
As I was driving to Bentonville, I got a call from Renee who was sick and would not be eating dinner with me. boo.
For some reason I didn’t take any pictures of the exhibit. I don’t remember a sign up saying that I couldn’t. It seemed a little intrusive to take pictures of these secrets even though they had already been posted up on the internet. They were still fascinating little bits of humanity hanging on a wall. It’s amazing how the adage that “the most personal is the most universal” seems to be true. There were secrets of fear, loss, shame, infidelity, and unmentioned crimes. No matter how odd and out of sync with the world you feel, you can find yourself somewhere in those postcards.
After that, it was a trip to SEPHORA. I love Sephora. It’s a store that sells nothing but beauty products. Yeah I know that I do not necessarily look like a person who would be all giggly over a beauty products store but I am. Sephora has testers of each and every product they sell. Oh the smelling and the testing. I had way too much fun testing lip gloss, tinted moisturizers, blush . . . you name it. I ended up getting the famous Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (the tinted style). Bellesouth did a review of that stuff and apparently, it does make your eyeshadow last all day.
After that I ended up making attempts to get in touch with Peter which failed and I ended up eating dinner at Doe’s Eat Place in Fayetteville alone. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would since I had so many plans to see so many people. The ice storm threw people for a loop and other people, like Ms. Bellesouth, already had plans for the weekend penciled in weeks in advance.
So it was a good trip. It was nice to know that some of the friends you make will last. Also, I’m stronger and more adventurous than I thought. I do eventually get over it, no matter what “it” is. I was pleased to learn that my Garmin does work and is quick to becoming the most prized possession in my car.
